


let’s build our mausoleum [a suite in ∞ acts]

by Itar94



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Afterlife of angels, Alterative Universe – Canon Divergence, Angel War/Heaven Civil War, Angelic Grace, Angels, Angels and death, Angels and emotions don't mix, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Apocalypse, Canonical Character Death, Castiel-centric, Childbirth, Dark, Do angels have souls?, Dubious Consent, Fallen Castiel, Gabriel Lives, Heaven, Heaven Civil War, Heavy Angst, Humanity, Humans are kinder than angels, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Memory Alteration, Mind Control, Mindwiping, Morality, Mpreg, Naomi Being a Dick, Nephilim, Obedience, Please read with caution, Pre-Relationship, Psychological Torture, Re-Education, Season/Series 04, Season/Series 05, Souls, TW: Drug Abuse, Time Travel, Vessels and angels, but i am working toward a happy ending, dark themes, deep strange questions without answers, or at least an OK ending, somewhat of a character development study as well, things get worse before they get better, this is a dark story with some disturbing themes, tw: blood and gore, tw: character death, tw: child death (temporary)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-14 09:46:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 41,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2187060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itar94/pseuds/Itar94
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The angel in front of him smiles, but it’s not a kind smile. There’s nothing human about it (but why would there be?). It's not his first re-education. She says, sounding weary of this game: "I'm afraid this won't be the last time, Castiel."</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>(a history of disobedience. of freedom. of an angel leaving his wings behind.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. TAKE ONE [act i] forgive me, Father

**let’s build our mausoleum  
** **[a suite in ∞ acts]**

# TAKE ONE  
[act i.]

**_forgive me, Father_ **

* * *

_Orders. You have orders. Obey. It is His will. No place for doubt. Orders. You have orders. Obey –_

The mantra is always sung in Heaven. The Word is eternally passed on. It is obeyed. So intricately woven into their essence; they cannot let go of it. They cannot fight it – or they do not realize to – or they do not  _want_  to.

(If they do, they Fall. They become abominations to be hunted down, because they are always ordered,  _always_   _ordered,_  to hunt the Fallen and rid the world of their disgrace. And the Fallen are never allowed to speak of what they perceive as the truth. Few manage to flee, run away, survive. Few dare to. If they Fall, they are lost and shunned, like Lucifer – or locked away, cursed, names forgotten.)

Castiel doesn’t know anymore.

What is right. What is wrong. Where the orders are coming from, from whom, what the Word even is, because so much is forgotten and so much has become lies.

The wide span of Uriel’s wings (once white and golden) burns black against the concrete floor of the warehouse, only visible to the human eye now that they are withering away. Castiel stands up slowly, ragged,  _torn_ , his vessel bleeding. Uriel never managed to strike his Grace, but Castiel cannot be thankful or relieved. He doesn’t know what he should be.

Uriel lied, killed his kin, their siblings, trying to convert them to abandon their Father and set Lucifer free. Uriel betrayed them.

(Or did he? Did he receive Revelation, new orders, as he said? Was it Revelation to free Lucifer? – Or is  _he,_ Castiel _,_  a traitor, like Anael who has turned her back on Heaven and the Word and the orders? What is the  _truth_?)

In the dew of morning, he prays to their Father, waiting.

(There is no answer.)

* * *

It might have begun (the doubt, this twinge in his essence which should not be there) lifetimes ago during a starless, bloodied night in Egypt. Or it might have begun on the edge of the universe as it took shape, when Castiel was just yet a though, fleeting, incomplete. Or it might have begun just seconds ago as he descended on Earth to ask Jimmy Novak for permission to take over his body like a puppet master takes control of a doll. Or it was forty years ago when he received Revelation to lay siege on Hell with his brothers and sisters. It might have begun when he first laid eyes on the soul of Dean Winchester, buried beneath so many layers of blood and dust and yet shining so bright, so pure – The Righteous Man must live, were the orders – and Castiel gripped him tight and raised him from Perdition.

Then, then his wings were burning in the cold dark Hellfire, and so many of his brothers and sisters were dead or dying. And, yet, Castiel had felt such inexplicable  _joy_  (an emotion he should not have felt) as he pulled the Righteous Man up, pieced his body back together, atoms singing in his hands.

It might have begun when he saw Dean’s broken body and Alistair standing over him, the demon’s true face hideous and filled with glee and rage.

Or it might have begun in some moment before, in-between, some second when Castiel came near the Righteous Man, looked at his soul gleaming in the dark like a beacon, when the man could not see him. As a wavelength of light travelling between dimensions faster than a human eye could ever follow, Dean would never know he was there, watching, wondering at this beauty that his Father had made. Wondering if His Word truly meant what Castiel’s superiors kept telling him, and instantly feeling ashamed and confused for thinking so. For their Father could not possibly be a liar.

Angels should not doubt.

(Angels should never fall for mankind, for a single man, for a human soul, something so insignificant. But Dean Winchester was anything but. The Righteous Man must live, the orders were. And Castiel knows, knows why. For to Heaven to prevail, if all the seals are broken, they must have a weapon ready and Dean Winchester is the only choice. But he cannot tell the two brothers this. He has orders. Has always had orders.)

* * *

This pain is strange, new. Sudden. Unexpected. This pain is not of the body – the vessel (not entirely anyway) – it is his own, but not as if he has been struck by an angel blade, cutting through his Grace and forcing it apart. This is new pain. This is –  _emotion_.

It is worse than any physical pain.

Dangerous. Forbidden. It is not allowed; it is the path to doubt, to questioning orders and the Word, and they have never been allowed to doubt. Because if they begin to doubt, what do they have? Without belief, where should they turn? What should they  _do_?

Freedom is an alien concept.

But Castiel finds, there is something – familiar about it. As if once in the past he might have tasted it, before rapidly losing it again.

* * *

“What the hell, Cas? Since when does Uriel put a leash on you?”

Dean’s voice is strong and filled with what Castiel has learned to be annoyance, sprinkled with anger, disbelief, weariness. And there is no way to properly explain for the man to understand. He is no angel.

He does not know what re-education means.

“My superiors have begun to question my sympathies,” Castiel says instead. He cares too much about the humans and the Winchesters, and not enough about the wishes of Heaven. Never enough. Or, perhaps,  _too_  much; he  _has_  tried, cautiously, to seek other paths – but prophecies have already been written, and they have to be fulfilled. They have received Revelation. Uriel is adamant. It must be done.

( _You have always had too much heart,_  he has the vague memory of Anael telling him before she choose to Fall, when the world yet was young, and their Father more than memory; before she had seen enough of humanity to be proud of one of her brothers behaving thus. Then, she had told him to reconsider, to stop the doubt before it appeared, because there was no reward in doubt.

After becoming Anna Milton, she might have instead said, before he tried to find and kill her:  _You have always had so much heart, and it is good_. But now he has never had anyone being proud of him.)

“Well, you can tell Uriel, or whoever – you don’t want me doing this.” Dean’s eyes are dark in the gloom, his mouth a tight grim line, but Castiel sees his soul and not his face. It is dimmed now, with barely suppressed anger and disappointment and – fear.

He remembers Hell.

“… you don’t want me doing this.” 

* * *

“Join me, brother. All you have to do is be unafraid.”

For the first time – (since he can remember; because Castiel does not know this, not yet, but he has been dragged back to Heaven, to re-education, more than once. He does not know yet but he has met an angel there named Naomi, and each time afterward, he has forgotten it, forgotten what it was to doubt, to disobey, to question orders) – for the first time, in a very long time, Castiel  _is_.

* * *

Anael helps him to his feet, blade still in her hand. The smell of blood left behind by Uriel’s dead vessel is sharp, the air thick and tense. The lights are flickering. Castiel does not thank her – cannot, yet, if ever. His brother is dead. He was a liar, a traitor – but they laid siege on Hell together. Side by side they fought through countless demons and shadows to reach the Righteous Man.

Angels do not have burial rituals. They are immortal (but not invincible) and for a long time, before time was beginning to be counted by humans, no angel ever faced Death. Now eight angels are dead. They have no way to make a funeral for them – they don’t know how. And no one knows what it means for an angel to die, not really. What their afterlife is like, because it isn’t Heaven. Angels do not have souls to be freed.

(There have been whispers:  _we simply cease to be_.)

Perhaps he should have been one of them. 

* * *

Invisible and intangible, he watches the Winchesters, wings tightly folded against his back.

Castiel has glimpsed in Dean’s memory his conversation with Anael while he and Uriel were hunting her. She told him why she chose to Fall, about emotion, about  _fear_. And something inside of Castiel is hurting now, as he watches the man dream, and seeing himself in some of those dreams, as a shadow, vigilant, created by Dean’s mind as an image of what the man believes he really is.  _Obedient, perfect, cold, no choice –_   _like a marble statue_ , echo Anael’s words in Dean’s memories, clear and sharp like the edges of a knife.  _Only obedient._

And he doesn’t yet know the name of this emotion rising in tidal waves within him. Instead he lingers and watches the man as he sleeps in the hospital bed, hooked up to wires and machines that keep him alive.

He cannot risk drawing the attention of other angels by healing him right now. They are already monitoring him closely – news of Uriel’s death have spread, no doubt – and he has orders to follow (always orders). But the excuses feel thin and poor, and Sam is utterly furious. Castiel makes himself invisible again, so that the younger Winchester can sit next to his brother without noticing his presence.

* * *

With Uriel’s betrayal – or is it one? – come to light, Castiel finds himself in Heaven for questioning. And there are no lies here, there is nothing he can hide, should hide. He speaks of what he thinks is the truth. He faces Zachariah and Emeriel and Zophiel, and their faces are stern, their wings spread wide to intimidate; and he bows his head and recoils.

They are disappointed that he faced Anael without killing her. But they let him go, mark Uriel as a traitor, mourn the eight others he had killed. They seal the parchments.

 _Go_ , they say.

Unfurling his wings, he does not hesitate to leave. He finds, when landing on Earth, that it’s easier to breathe here.

* * *

Pressing him up against a wall, Dean has a Prophet of the Lord in a tight grip around his collar. His soul is tinted with disbelief. This drunken forum writer – a  _Prophet_?

Dean has never believed, never wanted to believe (because the universe is a broken, unfair place), so Castiel is not surprised. Chuck is a man of greatness; a mouthpiece, yes, but a writer of prophecies. At the time, Castiel truly believes so; that prophecies cannot be broken. That what the Prophet has written must come to pass – it’s what he always has been taught.

But this is before. Later, Castiel learns, that is a lie. Fate is a fickle thing. Destiny can be rewritten. The Word is a lie. Yet is continues to be spread and believed like poison and there’s no cure freely distributed.

Some angels are able to Fall for humanity – for a man, whose shell is littered with cracks and fragments of other people’s souls – and Castiel is one of them.

All of his prayers are met with silence.

* * *

(Angels have never been taught about hope or passion or hesitation before the cause. Their Father never turned to them and said: ‘ _Think, my children. Be free.’_ )

* * *

It’s not meant to happen. It isn’t written.

Lying drunk on his couch, Chuck Shurley doesn’t dream about it.

* * *

Dean has had too much to drink. He’s angry, trying to forget. Castiel watches him until the man stumbles onto the sidewalk and then he’s suddenly there, helping the man to stand.

He isn’t sure who initiates what. Then his vessel is burning and it feels too good, too good to be true but too good to be wrong even if this  _is_  sin. He can recall what sex is from the memories belonging to Jimmy Novak and from watching humanity grow as the world slowly turns; but this is different, new all the same. This is no vision half-seen through lidded eyes. Though this body is not his own, not really, his Grace burns with sudden yearning, and he reaches out with hands and lips that feel like they truly  _are_  his, to taste Dean, to feel him, lay a claim him.

It may be sin, but it is wonderful. There’s something terrifyingly beautiful about it. He has never felt so utterly alive. The doubt feels far-away, the need for orders, his bleak hopes for answers from his Father. For a moment there is just him and Dean in this ordinary run-down motel room. Lights flicker, bulbs exploding and a wind fluttering even if the windows are closed – Dean doesn’t seem to notice. The man’s soul is so bright, burning, warm. If he could hold onto it a little longer –

* * *

In the morning, the sun falling through the windows bleakly, Castiel feels panic for the first time. The bond between him and Dean is something fragile, a carefully woven thread and now he has begun cutting into it. One day it will fall apart (because all things pass). He doesn’t want it to end this way, so abruptly. He’s content with how they are now – he has to be – what else  _should_  he be?

So he lays his hand on Dean’s sleeping face, the man not stirring, and builds a wall across his mind, sealing off a carefully chosen section.

When Dean wakes up half an hour later, Castiel is gone like a wisp of wind and there are no traces left behind but the slight dent in the pillow next to the man’s head. Dean stares at it for a moment, confused that he cannot remember falling asleep, can’t remember if he was alone or not.

 _It’s better this way,_  Castiel tells himself, turning toward the dawn.  _It’s safer this way._  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _This is my first Supernatural fic - I got into this fandom rather recently. Well, got violently pulled in, head and feet, is a more apt description, I think. The plot for this fic came to me on a whim. I thought: what if there was more to it than it first appeared when Cas got dragged to heaven in The Rapture and when he obeyed Zachariah after that (until Lucifer Rising)?_
> 
> _I've tagged a few **trigger warnings** but I'm listning some them here again, in more detail: there is mentions of **character death** , canonical and otherwise, but **no permanent** major character death. There's a chapter dealing with an AU End!verse where this warning mostly applies. In that chapter there's also **mentions of childbirth** (not overly graphic but there's mention of blood and gore) as well as **child death**. As earlier mentioned that's in an End!verse chapter that's slightly divergent from canon, but it can still be quite upsetting. That chapter also deals with **mentions of drug abuse**. Some things not mentioned in canon or fully explained there I've taken my own spin on. Plus, I'm introducing some themes/characters from later seasons and incorporating them earlier in the fic, so it's probably necessary to be familiar with later seasons. In other words canon is being stirred thoroughly. If anything else comes up I'll add it in the tags._
> 
> _I'm not an American citizen and all I've done is researched some distances and towns and names, etc; but I can have gotten a lot of things wrong. Therefore I'm remaining mostly deliberatingly vague about locations in this story. And sometimes when characters end up in towns, I have an idea of where they're located (like which State for example, for a rough travel distance) but I'm still not specifiying, because I've created some places and people that I don't think actually exist (but are plausible to exist). So if there's anything in here that actually coincidences with real life, it's, well, coincidence. This applies mostly in later chapters (Take Five)._
> 
>  _I found some voices harder than other to write. I hope I'm doing them all justice here. Now this is a ridiculously long author's note so I'm gonna leave off here. This piece hasn't been beta-read so if there's some kind soul out there who'd be willing to help me, please let me know and I'll gladly accept the help! Also if you find any errors, please tell me so I can correct it! Thank you._
> 
> _(2015-11-22) I've started going through this story and correcting some errors and stuff, fixing it up before I return to updating. This fic isn't abandoned, I promise! Due to university studies and such I haven't been able to write for quite a while._


	2. TAKE ONE [act ii] for I have sinned

# TAKE ONE  
[act ii.]

**_for I have sinned_ **

* * *

It doesn’t come as a sudden realization, the knowledge of what’s happening. His Grace has been slowly turning and twisting and churning for days. His vessel has behaved erratically, strangely hot one moment only to be freezing cold the next; and he has begun to feel things he had never expected. When he finally stretches out with his Grace and closes his eyes and  _feels_ , searches for whatever illness or wound that has befallen him without his knowledge, it has been eight days since that fateful night that Dean cannot remember.

At once, Castiel knows that he is in danger and nowhere is safe anymore.

He must begin lying.

* * *

He cannot let anyone know; not Dean or any other human (they would never comprehend and it would put them all into too much danger). But more importantly, none of his kin must know. So he ties his Grace tightly around himself and the womb now infused into his true form like a cocoon that no gaze can pierce. This way, though it drains much of his strength, no one can see or feel the presence of the small soul sparked within him. For now, he will be safe. (The world is small to hide in.)

And he returns to Heaven to receive orders, pretending all is well and that he has never sinned. That he still is an obedient angel, a good solider. He  _must_  remain a good solider.

There can be no room for doubt.

* * *

For a long time he doesn’t visit the Winchesters. Perhaps he has always been too cowardly.

Briefly, some weeks after that night (as humans count time - many angels never bother), he finds himself in a winter garden somewhere half around the globe, full of new human souls to admire. It’s soothing, this silence, this place where no one knows him. For a time, none of his brothers and sisters are calling for him or handing out new tasks. For a moment, there’s peace.

Crickets are singing in the night. Words written in every poem: to bask in the glow of humanity is something heavenly (but no poet has ever seen Heaven before putting the quill to the paper – no one ever  _knows_ ).

* * *

Nephilim are forbidden. They are  _more_  than sin. They are worse than the abominations of Hell. Because angels are not meant to love – they are built for the Wrath of Heaven. They may be guardians of humanity, but they aren’t meant to love them, absolutely never share themselves or tie themselves to them. Never meant to. That’s what he has always been told, always  _believed_.

But that’s before he met the Righteous Man. Now, now he doesn’t know anymore. If faith is something to hold to, or to crave, or to despise.

 _Maybe sin,_  he thinks, terrified at the prospect:  _maybe sin isn’t real._

* * *

He isn’t human, far from it, yet he is already losing strength. He knows that by the end he will not be strong enough to support the weight of his whole Grace anymore – but it’s already started slipping away, slowly, like water through a drain. In the end it might not matter.

For that is the curse of the Nephilim. They are not angels, nor are they human. They will never need to take vessels like angels do since it will be born within one already (if it survives so far). But it will be far from human, possessing a hidden power that is yet another reason why they are forbidden and feared and hated. They are something in-between; souls that need Grace to live. And he is the only source of Grace for this small soul to feed on.

* * *

( _Abominations! Destroy them!_  rang the cries over now erased fields, ages ago, a battle that has never been recorded:  _Defilers, sinners – penance has come!)_

* * *

Joy is something angels never have been told to imagine.

Humans – humans  _relish_  it.

(Only one of them truly prospers.)

* * *

He considers telling them: about Lilith, the Seals. The plans for the Righteous Man. The Michaelsword. Zachariah’s constant little games. The  _truth_.

So he visits Dean’s dreams again, the lake calm and tranquil in the golden glow of a sunset, and the man is surprised at his presence. In his mind Dean sees him as something else than human and the outlines of his wings are clear in the mirrored surface of the water.

But his superiors can hear the whispers of doubt in his mind, and then it is too late. He draws sigils and wards on the walls in his vessel’s blood and counts the seconds. There’s nowhere, no time, to run. He has to face them. Perhaps – oh, but they will not be! – perhaps they will be lenient.

(They always are in the humans’ dreams; merciful messengers of hope.)

When they find him they outnumber him five to one – Emeriel is among them, as is Inias, both survivors of the Siege of Hell. The Winchester Gospel doesn’t mention their names, the Prophet never saw them. And the readers of the Prophet’s words don’t believe them to be real, anyway. Their true faces are drawn with disdain, though their vessels remain still, hands clasped tight around swords quietly warning:  _Make a wrong move and we’ll cut you down._  Zachariah is perplexed rather than angry or disappointed - he shouldn’t consider things like these. He shouldn’t begin weighing the Earth against Heaven and consider the Earth to be more worth.

(Their Father once long ago said:  _There’ll be Heaven on Earth._  Not: _There’ll be an Earth in Heaven_.) 

Hester frowns and says they held more faith for him than this; they say he used to be such a good Captain, such a good solider. And he was, oh, oh he  _was._

Not for this moment. He struggles, tooth and nail, whips out his blade from between dimensions and lashes out to defend himself though he has no desire to kill any of his kin, but they evade his strikes. (He has given up speaking – he tried, tried saying:  _Are these really the orders we should follow?_ ) In a final, desperate attempt he takes flight, past the speed of light. They are right behind him, grabbing for his wings, nicking a few of the feathers.

It’s Rebekah who reaches him first, after hours or days or minutes of chase, and she drags him toward the awaiting shackles. And then they’re in Heaven, another angel working in Intelligence waiting for them – but he cannot remember meeting her before. Her vessel is a tall pale woman with dark hair tied back in a strict knot. A faithful woman chosen to serve, giving up her body in the hope of going to a better place once her heart stops beating. She smiles (a foreign expression that’s never genuine and never kind), and Castiel scowls and tries to flee, oh so fruitlessly tries to  _flee_  –

* * *

It’s not his first re-education. She says, sounding weary of this game: _I’m afraid this won’t be the last time, Castiel._

After they have untied him and are no longer digging into his mind to remove all traces of doubt, he can remember just flashes of things. And some things run just too deep for them to grab hold of and tear out of him.

He will not forget Dean Winchester or the emotions caused by this man, for this man, all for this man. And those memories, burning and bright, are so in the way that the other angel never can find out his deepest, darkest secrets, and he manages to use his Grace to shield the tiny soul nestled within him. She and all the other angels remain oblivious even as he is processed and sent back to Earth with clear new orders to  _Obey, obey, obey._

A leash is tied around him and this time, he knows, he cannot escape. There is only so much strength he has left to protect himself, his secrets. Sooner or later all things will come to light.

* * *

“You should not have come here, Anna.”

As he watches them drag her away and the anguished confusion in her eyes, the anger of betrayal, he whispers: _I’m sorry._

Nobody listens.

* * *

He does not see the Winchesters for many days after that.

Something inside of him is hurting again. It’s  _longing_  – though he does not know the word for it, cannot place it in Enochian – and it’s a deep need an angel should not have, a need for closeness and comfort and not these lonely halls where he paces, three steps behind Zachariah. The older angel makes plans, nudging Dean and Sam ever closer to their destinies. Castiel follows.

One evening Zachariah turns to him, still unknowing, still unable to see his lies for which Castiel is ever grateful, and he says: “It’s time. Do your job, Castiel.”

He has to make Dean promise to serve Heaven. And what other choice does he have but to obey?

* * *

He hears Dean pleading. Crying. Screaming. Screaming his name into the night sky and marking it with it.

Finally, finally, he is allowed to spread his wings and speed toward him.

* * *

Sam is locked in the panic room, fighting ghosts that are not there, and tears, so fragile, are glimmering in Dean’s eyes. And Castiel appears before him with false hope, a bearer of words not his. Dean trusts him now, trusts him like no other angel, and Zachariah knows that – he knows that Castiel is the only one who can make the Righteous Man promise.

Soon Michael will have his vessel, and all will be over.

“I’ve been screaming myself hoarse out here!”

Castiel wants to say:  _I did not want to make you upset. I did not want to anger you._  But he has orders.

“What do you want?” he asks instead, though he knows. Dean cares too much for Sam. For family. For the Earth and its people. He wants the end to be stopped and he can be convinced, Zachariah knows (thinks) the man can be convinced –

“We can start with what the hell happened in Illinois.”

Illinois. The feathers stolen from him as they had surrounded him and dragged him back to Heaven (too many minutes and hours that he can no longer remember in clarity). But these are answers he cannot give, yet, if ever. Dean would not understand what it means to be restrained and forced to back Heaven.

“What do you mean?”

“Cut the crap. You were gonna tell me something,” Dean presses, stepping closer. And Castiel wants to tell him, suddenly. He feels his vessel tense and his true form ripping at the edges of this prison of flesh and lies, and he wants to claw out of it, and tell Dean, tell him about Zachariah, the white Room waiting for him, about the Archangel watching them closely expecting his vessel to be given to him any day now. He wants to –

No. Then Zachariah would suspect. Then they would take him again, chain him down, torture him for answers. And his Grace and his vessel are vulnerable now, far more than he would like. He cannot sacrifice anything (more) now, it’s too late. If only things had been different, if only – but he feels the beginning of the child nestle in the womb, content and unaware and safe. He has to keep it safe, this tiny innocent soul – he’s decided it should continue to exist – it deserves to live.

(But Dean. Dean may go to Heaven, be rewarded there. He will not live and he will lose his brother. Just as he lost his mother, his father. Does he not deserve a different fate? A true life with true people here on Earth until his true days are up; not in a prison with full of smoke and mirrors?)

 _Orders, Castiel_ , he has to repeat to himself.  _Survival_.

So he says: “It’s not of import.”

Dean does not believe him. Of course he doesn’t. He can see through the lies. But at least he cannot see the truth. At least, for a time, he is safe (but Castiel knows that that too is a lie. Everything is.)

“You got ass-reamed in Heaven but it ‘wasn’t of import’?”

“Dean, I can’t.” Cannot tell him. The pain is yet fresh, the fear, the fear not for himself but for the new life he is carrying, the life that wasn’t even meant to be. “I’m – sorry.” The word is foreign on his tongue, yet Castiel remembers his vessel saying it many times before, as an honest word, before Jimmy Novak said yes to hosting an angel.

* * *

(Buried in one of his ribs, Jimmy is sleeping, unaware of what’s happening for most of the time.  _He_ , at least, will be safe, and he has a haven waiting for him.)

* * *

Castiel makes Dean swear allegiance to Heaven, follow orders. And Dean’s final question (worried, poisonous) remains: “If I do this, Sammy doesn’t have to?”

Everything for Sam, for family. Castiel is unsure what that feels like, what it truly means, but it’s what Zachariah has been counting on. He knew Dean would agree if he thought it would spare his brother.

(Perhaps it is what he’s doing now, for the sake of the Nephilim – an instinct that is new, and difficult to ignore.)

“Say it.” So that every angel can hear.

“I give myself over wholly to God, and ... you guys.”

He has no idea. So hopeful still. Hopeful for his brother’s sake. If he knew how to weep, Castiel would do so. Instead he turns and spreads his wings again, sensing Zachariah is in the Room waiting for him to return and report. He doesn’t turn to Dean to thank him.

The End is coming.

* * *

The man cannot hear the sorrow in his voice because Castiel doesn’t allow it to show (but it might leak through anyway).

“Hello, Dean. It’s almost time.”

* * *

Zachariah is humours and his voice so dry in its truth and Castiel wants to curse him and turn away, turn to Dean and tell him –  _again_  – but his secret … When Dean glares at Zachariah and then glances at him in anger, disbelief (his eyes screaming:  _You tricked me! You lied to me, you fucking backstabbing –!),_ Castiel lowers his eyes to the floor, silent.

* * *

All Dean wants is Sam to be safe. To hear his voice once more. He hasn’t understood the meaning of the End. Again and again he leaves voicemails, pacing the lavish halls of the Room which has no doors the human can pass through. For some time Castiel just watches him, invisible and unheard; but he knows Zachariah is nearby, he always is, and at least two of his underlings, faithful and doubtless. If he tries anything they will interfere at once. It’s too risky.

When Castiel refuses to help, avoiding answers, the man tries breaking down the walls. But they are illusionary, this is a dimension usually not visited by humans and this is a prison even if there are no bars to be seen. No windows. And Dean curses, grabs some lavish figurine (an angel wielding a sword, wings white and eyes emotionless –  _a perfect marble statue_ ) and he stabs it at the wall. The statuette falls apart and crumbles to dust. If only orders would do the same.

Not soon after, Zachariah makes his presence known again. And Castiel knows immediately that Sam is close to fulfilling his destiny. Soon Lilith will be dead and Lucifer set free, seeking his vessel, and Michael is peering down at them from the Heavens with eager eyes.

As the older angel at last reveals the truth to the Righteous Man, Castiel has to look away. He cannot bear seeing such expressions on Dean’s soul, but he glimpses it darkening at the edges.

So many humans are about to die. And angels. So many angels. The world is going to burn, and Zachariah is smiling, pleased. Castiel folds his wings tightly around himself, making a shield. As if it would help.

“Tell me something,” Dean says, voice tight; “where’s God in all this?”

“God?” Zachariah shakes his head. Still smiling. Castiel trembles. “God has left the building.”

* * *

“What are you gonna do to Sam?”

“Nothing. He will do it to himself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Castiel looks away. The truth lies so close to his lips. In a heartbeat, he could reach out, place his hand on Dean’s forehead and burn every word he knows into the man’s mind – but then Zachariah would know, he’d send angels wielding blades and more chains –

“Oh, right, right,” Dean mutters dryly. Disappointed.  _Please!_ Castiel nearly cries: _I want to tell you, Dean. I wish I could. Please! Understand!_  ”Got to toe the company line. Just tell me. Why are you here, Cas?”

(He was going to warn him, once.)

He tries to find the words. He needs to say. Needs to hear. To feel. Nothing is really enough. After the End, Dean will no longer be Dean, and Castiel will have to hide soon, run, run far away and pretend to be dead. Yes. Death would have been an option once, not Falling, not disobedience. Not this fate. But it is no option now. The child is warm inside of him, presence both soothing and terrifying; tiny hands clinging to his Grace, believing he will give it strength, protection, comfort.

Once the Apocalypse falls upon the Earth, also Heaven will burn and be reformed and Hell upturned. All will be different – Paradise on Earth. After, the skies will have been cleared and turned into something new. There will be nowhere safe, nowhere to hide. The War will rage across the whole planet and its echoes stretch across the universe. In the end, Castiel fears, he will lose anyway. Alone and lost, they will find him one day (other angels and demons and every enemy he has ever gathered) even if he were to hide in the shadow of a nebula halfway across the galaxy. And they will find his child and tear them apart. Even on a New Earth, a Nephilim will still be forbidden. An unforgivable sin.

There’s no promise of their Father returning and setting things right. He never wrote a goodbye, a letter, a note saying:  _Take care of each other._

“We’ve been through much together, you and I,” Castiel begins saying, hesitating. Some things Dean cannot be allowed to remember, for his own sake. “And I wanted to say ... I’m sorry it ended like this.”

“‘Sorry’?” Then Dean’s fist is in his face. Had he been a human he would have crumpled to the ground, wailing in pain. Even with his Grace slowly diminishing, like a star quietly burning out, Castiel wills himself not to flinch. The hurt, faint and vague as it is (his vessel’s face bruising and healing faster than the eye can see) is welcome. A burn to remind him he still is real. “It’s fucking  _Armageddon_ , Cas. You need a bigger word than ‘sorry’!”

It’s not all that he means, but Castiel understands.

 _Listen to me, Dean_. “Try to understand.”  _Listen to me_. “This is long foretold.”  _Listen to me._  ”This is your –”

“Destiny? Don’t give me that ‘holy’ crap. Destiny, God’s plan... It’s all a bunch of lies, you poor, stupid sonofabitch! It’s just a way for your bosses to keep me and keep you in line! You know what’s real? People, families –  _that’s_   _real_ , Cas. And you’re gonna watch them all  _ **burn**_?”

* * *

There have been pasts before that Castiel watched from afar, and some that he looked at close by, where there was death and guilt and sorrow, and so few survived – but mankind has always moved on. Surpassed the pain. Built new homes, created new paths. This is an End – but also a beginning. Paradise on Earth. That’s the promise, as their Father spoke so long ago: _It is only the Beginning._

And Castiel wants to hold that true. Believe. But he has begun to learn, to know better. He has tasted humanity and it is not rotten; it has darkness, but it has so much light as well, so much hope, and none of the humans deserve to die this way and Dean is  _right_  –

* * *

His voice brings another sort of pain that Castiel almost cherishes, at the same time as he hates it, fears it, fears for Dean and the world. A lifetime ago, he would not have felt any of these things.

“This is simple, Cas! No more crap about being a good soldier. There is a right and there is a wrong here, and you know it.”

The heart inside of his body is beating faster now, matching Dean’s agitated pulse. And even with Zachariah so close Castiel is tempted, tempted to wrap his arms around him and say: _I have to choose, Dean, I have to protect –_

When he tries turning away the man grabs his shoulder, roughly. “Look at me! You know it! You were gonna help me once, weren’t you? You were gonna warn me about all this, before they dragged you back to Bible camp.”

_Oh, Dean, you do not comprehend – I am an angel. The punishment for disobedience, for doubt, for choosing a human over my kin and the Word…_

“Help me – now.  _Please_.”

Dean never pleads, not like this. His eyes are earnest.

“What would you have me do?” he asks hoarsely. He has tasted fear before, but never been terrified. He has never feared for his own life. But the child is twisting restlessly as if knowing how close the danger is.

“Get me to Sam. We can stop this before it’s too late.”

“I do that, we will all be hunted. We’ll  _all_  be killed.”

Dean doesn’t know he isn’t thinking of himself when speaking those words.

“Cas, if there is anything worth dying for ... this is it.”

If he could – if choices weren’t so difficult to bear – if the world was fair (but it never is) –

His silence is unwanted, unwelcome. Dean sees it as a sign. Clarity. Anger. The words come out heated and rushed, the man spitting his name as if it were something dirty, soiled with sin. And it is –  _Oh, Dean,_  he wishes to whisper,  _you cannot understand._   _You think you know, but there is so little you know of angels._

“You spineless,  _soulless_  sonofabitch! What do you care about dying? You’re already dead.”

“… Dean –”

* * *

And he knows: Dean is  _right_.

* * *

Zachariah vanishes in a flash of white light, screams fading into nothing and Dean is staring at him. Castiel hands him the knife, blood dripping from the edge.

“We have to stop Sam.”

“What? But Lilith’s gonna break the final seal!”

“Lilith  _is_  the final seal. She dies, the end begins.”

Then he places his hand on Dean’s forehead (like he did so long ago, yet such a short time ago, the night Dean no longer remembers), and he flies them to the Prophet’s house.

* * *

“But, but you guys aren’t meant to be there. You’re not in this story!” Chuck looks confused and a little upset. The script is in his hand and now they are ripping it apart (again).

Castiel glances at Dean, whose face has hardened and the man’s thoughts are clear and sharp on the surface:  _must get to Sammy, gotta save Sammy, gotta stop the world from ending._

(If he could be so brave too.)

“… Yeah well, we’re making it up as we go.”

Then the whole house trembles and though the two men can only hear a great white noise, the windows glowing and scalding hot, Castiel can hear an Archangel screaming:  _Traitor! traitor! traitor!_

_**  
** _


	3. TAKE ONE [act iii] the prophet

# TAKE ONE  
[act iii.]

**_the prophet_ **

* * *

After that, after the white light, he travels for a long time through nothingness. The Prophet Chuck is alive, of that Castiel is certain. And, for some reason,  _he_  is too.

He knew he could not survive fighting an Archangel, especially not in his weakened condition. So he had turned to the only option left and turned his blade toward the body he’s inhibiting, ignoring the Prophet’s panic, and carved a banishing sigil onto his vessel. The fragile flesh had bled, nerve endings frayed and heart beating frantically trying to stop the body from shutting down. And his Grace had twisted in pain, trying to protect the child – maybe Chuck found out then, as his concentration slipped, found out about the illusions as they failed. Maybe Chuck found out and perhaps Raphael did too; but it doesn’t matter now. He managed to get out, survive, banishing Raphael in the process. Hopefully the Archangel is as lost and disoriented as he. That will buy him some time.

As soon as he manages to find his bearings, Castiel takes flight. It’s a great strain, wings aching. All illusions and shields he had placed, they’re gone now. He had made sure that no one could see the bulge of the child in his belly, but it’s prominent now, as is its soul to any angel’s or demon’s eyes. The Nephilim is restless but unhurt. It’s the smallest of blessings.

He lands jaggedly somewhere near the property of Bobby Singer. The wide yard is littered with half-broken cars and torn-apart engines. He feels not unlike one of the scarred chassis lying there untouched. The sun is set and he hears the rustle of wind and crickets singing, but no one approaching, angels or otherwise. Finally he allows himself to breathe, lying flat on his back staring at the stars starting to come out.

He’s not sure if Dean and Sam are yet alive. Lucifer may be free –  _he_   _is_ , Castiel is suddenly certain. There’s this odd bitterness in the air, something has shifted. Lilith is dead, Lucifer free – but has he taken his vessel? Has Sam been contacted, relented yet?

It must have happened when he was banishing himself and Raphael, before he landed in one of the icy fjords of the Norwegian coast where he turned and flew away quickly before the angels could pick up the scent. Slowly he drags himself up to his feet again, wings flapping helplessly to keep his balance.

He has to find Dean and Sam, now. Before –

* * *

Zachariah finds them first.

* * *

The house of the Prophet is a mess – more than usual, at least, from what Castiel observed last he was here. The man himself is huddled on a sofa, nursing a glass of whisky and looking decidedly put out.

“Where are Dean and Sam?”

Chuck doesn’t flinch or look surprised at the brisk question. He glances down, though, at the angel’s slightly rounded belly which the white dress shirt does little to hide. “Zachariah and some of his goons came but Dean banished them. They’re off to contact Bobby about some lead – I, um, haven’t got of visions about the rest yet. After – now, everything’s changed. It’s not what I’d written.” The man sighs, pulls a hand through his ragged sweaty hairs, takes a deep sip of the liquor in his hand. “Right. And I didn’t have a vision about  _that_  either. At least, not when it happened, I mean.” He gestures at the spot where the Nephilim is taking shape.

There’s the underlying thought right beneath the man’s temple:  _My life was so normal before, now there’s a pregnant angel in my kitchen and the Apocalypse is freakin’ real and I really need another drink._

Shame coils through the veins of his vessel. The Prophet never saw it; it wasn’t written, wasn’t meant to be. It’s the result of sin, then, after all. But Chuck continues; “So…Okay. I think I realize what’s going on. It’s Dean’s, right?” The expression on the man’s face and in his soul tells Castiel that Chuck doesn’t expect any other answer than  _yes_. He already knows so much about him, Dean, them.

“And to think I wasn’t sure if I could sell that  _profound bond_  to start with…” the writer muses, then loudly clears his throat. “Um, right. Sam and Dean. Couldn’t you track them with, like, angel GPS? As I said, my dreams, my visions, they’re kind of whacky now … out-of-date. I had one, um, but it was really unclear, but I sent them a message – they’re heading for ‘a castle on a hill made of forty-two dogs’, that’s all I got out of it really. Anyway, I’m not sure if they’ve found the place yet – oh god, I hope that Becky didn’t ... Nevermind. So can you still track them?”

“I –” He could have done so once. But not now. There’s a reason why he had to fly Dean to Chuck to find the location of Sam – not only because both angels and demons were working against them. “My Grace is weakened.” But… “Zachariah can still track them, though.” Through his angel radio (as Dean calls the phenomena) he should be able to find the other angel’s trail and follow them. It’s more difficult, but he doesn’t know how he would approach Bobby Singer about the two brothers’ location, if the man even knows where they are. Besides he isn’t sure where Bobby is either. Castiel hopes they have thought about arming themselves – though they have no weapons that can kill angels. If Zachariah decides to overpower them…

All the more reason for him to hurry.

“Wait,” Chuck says, before he can take flight. “Does anybody know? About the, the Nephilim?”

Castiel isn’t surprised that the Prophet knows the term, even if it is forbidden. Prophets are known for carrying more knowledge than any human, even more than some angels; sometimes they find truths without looking for them. The way the man stumbles over the word is proof he’s never uttered it before. “No, and it must stay that way.”

“Shouldn’t Dean be told since he’s –”

“ _No_.” He surprises himself by the resolution in that single word. “No,” he repeats, softer. It’s too dangerous. Dean has enough to worry about – he cannot be dragged into this as well.

“You wiped his memory,” Chuck realizes, then frowns. “When did –”

“January.”

“Right. So you’re, what, three, four months along now? Holding the illusion up so nobody noticed must’ve taken serious amounts of energy.” The frown is deepening now and Castiel wishes the man would shut up, so that he could leave and there’d be no questions, so that he could find Dean and Sam – “Can you really keep that up? If, if the other angels find out... I mean, I saw you swaying when you landed –”

“Right now it is not of import. I must go.”

“‘Course, course.” The Prophet squints at the glass in his hand, which now is emptied. “Just – I want you to know, I’m on your side. If you... If there’s anything you need.”

The Prophet would no doubt be safer if he wasn’t. But it no longer matters. It’s too late.

* * *

Lucifer has risen and is seeking his True Vessel.

* * *

He doesn’t know it yet, but Bobby Singer wasn’t in his home when Castiel crash landed in his yard earlier that morning. He was in a hospital being treated for a stab wound after desperately fighting against the demon possessing him. He doesn’t know about the blinding light as Lucifer was freed or how Dean and Sam ended up on an airplane by chance or that yet another of a writer’s scripts was chucked into the bin.

He doesn’t know yet how Dean had been cursing,  _Damn it Cas, you stubborn sonofabitch,_  when finding Chuck’s home torn apart by the Archangel, Castiel nowhere in sight – without any sigils left on the walls, there’s no trace to tell the tale of what happened. He and Raphael might as well be dead – but Dean keeps  _hoping_.

Castiel doesn’t know.

* * *

The trail is difficult and dwindling, slowly growing cold. It crisscrossed the States until finally, he finds a place where Zachariah has landed. Emeriel and Sachiel are with him, standing still like blocks of ice behind him. No one hears him approach. Once they do – they react too slowly. Dean and Sam are on the ground, choking on their own blood; Zachariah is looking down at them, pleased with his efforts, displeased at their refusal of accepting their destinies.

Then the room is filled with pale light as Castiel stabs Emeriel through the throat. The vessel crumbles, lifeless, dark wings scorched to the ground. Sachiel tries putting up more of a fight, but the angel is in shock at seeing Castiel alive and with – even if his Grace is diminished – a soul nestled within him glowing bright. It’s too easy to finish him off. Sachiel was never a swordfighter, he was always the cautious one and he could have been alive hadn’t he stood in the way of the Winchester brothers’ safety. But Zachariah is quick to act then, planting himself firmly between Castiel and the brothers.

He isn’t meant to be alive, he knows Zachariah is thinking. Perhaps Chuck told them that he died instead of banishing himself with Raphael. If anyone could ever fool an angel, it would be a Prophet.

“ _You_ ,” Zachariah says, voice darkening, the tone underlined with: _Traitor!_

“Yes, I.” He gives the other angel the chance to leave. He is without his bodyguards now, Castiel standing before him with a bloodied sword. 

But Zachariah doesn’t take the chance.

“So Raphael didn’t kill you. I’ll have to reprimand him about that.” It sounds so ridiculous: an Archangel being reprimanded by a simple Seraph, even one of such high order? But it’s also true. Things have changed now.

Their Father isn’t making the rules anymore.

“He did follow orders,” Castiel retorts, sudden anger at the unfairness of it all welling up inside of him. Anger at the system. It should be torn apart. “He  _tried_  to.”

“And he failed. Now, seeing you – what you have done, what you’ve  _become_  ... frankly, I’m shocked he failed. How could you have kept  _this_  a secret from us?” Zachariah sweeps with his vessel’s hand downward. He sounds intrigued and disgusted and shocked – as shocked as an angel can be without standing on the brink of the Fall. He makes it clear that he thinks he shouldn’t have to be near this lowly Seraph who has soiled himself so. “With what insignificant mud-monkey have you sinned, Castiel?”

Behind him, the Winchesters are beginning to die. He can see now what’s been done to them: Sam is choking, his lungs ripped from his body, his bones broken, and Dean is crunched down, blood smeared on his lips, a tumour rapidly spreading through him and destroying him from inside out.

He doesn’t reply to the question. But he’s seen his chance then, a small weakness is Zachariah’s earlier words. “Oh, but you’re right. I  _should_  be dead. I think we both know why I’m not.”

And Zachariah – by some miracle –  _does_  fall for it, because Castiel is staring at him with true and honest conviction. Even if it is a lie. (He’s become better at lying.) “No. It can’t be.”

“It scares you, doesn’t it? Well, it should. Now heal them and let them go, Zachariah. I will not ask twice.”

* * *

Dean and Sam crawl up, suddenly healed, off-kilter, confused and possibly haunted by ghost pains. They glance at him in curiousity, relief, shock. He wonders what they see, if they can figure out what the slight bulge in his belly means – but they aren’t angels or Prophets, and they cannot see souls.

And at the moment they are too shaken to question something like that. It is plausible that they, during their silent gasping struggle with their bodies which Zachariah had harmed, they hadn’t had any energy left over to listen to the angels’ conversation. All the better. Castiel exhales slowly.

He can see Dean’s mind moving quickly, trying to figure things out. “Cas,” he says, voice a little hoarse. “Were you really dead?”

“I banished Raphael and myself from Chuck Shurley’s residence.”

Sam frowns slightly. “Raphael?”

“The Archangel. He’s no longer of a concern to you.” Then, without warning, Castiel steps forth and forces his Grace into action. It protests, but this must be done. Placing a hand each on their chests, he sears the carefully planned out sigils in their ribs, searing them there to be permanent marks. He won’t be able to find them after this, be so will not Zachariah or Lucifer or Michael either.

“Hey! Warn a guy!” Dean cries, rubbing his chest and looking offended. “What was that?”

“Enochian warding symbols. They will now hide you from every angel in creation, including Lucifer.”

“What, you branded us with it?”

“No, I carved them into your ribs,” he answers matter-of-factly. “Lucifer has begun circling his vessel; it is only a matter of time before he strikes. You two need to be more careful.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to get that,” Dean says, groaning. He looks tired and worn out and Castiel is tempted to put a hand to his forehead and take his aches and pains away. But that is a cost of Grace he can no longer afford. It was a high enough risk to brand their ribs. “Your frat brothers are bigger dicks than I thought.”

* * *

He wonders, at first, why Raphael is not immediately on the prowl for him. But then, he has left the Prophet and has no plans to return there. Perhaps, for the Archangel, that will suffice. Raphael’s concerns aren’t with others humans, amongst whom now Castiel has begun building his hiding place. He flitters from road to road, from window to window, sometimes invisible and (when the strain is too much on his Grace) sometimes not.

His wings ache constantly.

Sometimes, he hears Dean pray. But he can no longer enter his dreams because dreams can be overheard. He can no longer track him down to face him just to look at the man’s soul which brings him slight comfort. Instead he lingers in another part of the world (a park on the edge of spring, beautiful and tentative, flowers just beginning to bloom), listening.

* * *

They begin somewhere in the middle:

_“Hey, Cas. It’s me, Dean Winchester. You know I’m not much of a praying type but, well. Thanks for the branding thing, I guess, since we managed to get to Bobby’s okay. He’s pissed, you know. Bobby. Didn’t I tell you what happened? Crap. It was while you were gone, right after the convent. He got – he got stabbed. He’s … he can’t walk. If you could, you know, drop in, get a miracle going – we’re at Saint Martin’s Hospital …”_

* * *

Castiel sits under a lamppost, pretending the glow may be the gaze of his Father, watching over him and the Nephilim; but that of course is untrue and would never occur. First, his hands hang loosely at his sides, as if he is unsure of what to do with them.

_“Okay maybe you didn’t hear that one? Listen, it’s bad. I’ve never seen Bobby like this, you gotta fix him. Plus Sam’s all beaten up about it and I just – never mind. Just, drop in. Do me a favour, man. You’re still with us, right? You haven’t gotten dragged back to Heaven or somethin’ have you? ‘Cause the timing would suck ass.”_

* * *

Then he has his hands folded atop of the round of his belly, illusions shattered now. He can listen. Just listen. His wings feel so heavy, difficult to move. He doesn’t want to move them –

_“Cas. Listen. Maybe you’re busy but we need Bobby, we need him to fix this crap and right now he’s just staring at the walls and even Sam can’t get him to talk. So, just. C’mon buddy. We need you.”_

* * *

But he needs to move them, his hands, his body. Act. Dean sounds so agonized and worried and tired, so  _tired_ , and Lucifer is free and his brothers are hunting them all now and Castiel doesn’t know, doesn’t know what to do, who to turn to –

_“Hello? It’s me again. Maybe you turned off your angel radio thing and it tunes out prayers too, what do I know, but – answer, Cas. Just answer, goddamnit.”_

* * *

Five-thousand milliseconds later:

_“Cas, get your feathery ass down here!”_

* * *

After (an infinity of) failed trials:

_“Miracle! **Now**!”_

And Castiel shudders, feeling Dean’s pressing need and ire and his own desire to help, to be with the man, at his side, to stop chasing ghosts.


	4. TAKE ONE [act iv] aeternae

# TAKE ONE  
[act iv.]

**_aeternae_ **

* * *

The white walls of the hospital are confining, claustrophobic. It is a new sensation, a new thought. Castiel does not like it. (Yet another sign of his failing senses.)

The brothers meet him in the hallway, souls withered and weary. There is suspicion, tinged with relief. They wonder where he’s been, why he hasn’t come sooner, but they let him pass through the door without question. Their worry for Bobby is greater than the concern for him. In their eyes he’s an angel, not a human being. (He’ll never be truly human.)

* * *

He could say:  _I have a Nephilim within me that is slowly eating me away and soon my wings will fall off and I’ll go blind_ , but he chooses instead: “I’m cut off from much of Heaven’s power. There are certain things I can do - certain things I can’t.”

It matters now how much he  _wishes_.

“You’re telling me you lost your mojo just in time to get me stuck in this trap the rest of my life?!”

Bobby doesn’t deserve this. His soul, though dented and rough around the edges, is bright and kind and gentle. More than that, he’s important to the Winchesters, to Dean, a second father that cannot be replaced. The old hunter doesn’t deserve to slowly rot away from the inside because of this injury.

“… I’m sorry.”

“Shove it up your ass.”

* * *

He is not around to witness the brothers argue and part by some anonymous picnic bench upon a mountain rest outside of River Pass, Colorado. He does not hear their voices, muttered and whispered and cried hoarse. He does not see Sam take leave and Dean left sitting there alone.

Instead he is flitting from alley to alley to street-corner, seeking the shadows and constantly glancing over his shoulder. From sunset to sunset, never resting. From cloud to cloud where the winds are clear and cold. The rain there is welcome, stinging and sharp on his cheeks. Before, he’d have been able to feel the atoms and molecules cracking but now, now he feels it as a human would. It’s a beautiful thing, the simplicity of rain.

His Grace is burning.

Faintly, he hears his brothers and sisters moving. They are searching. The word has spread far now, like a rapid forest fire: there is a traitor amongst them. He has disobeyed. And that is the worst thing an angel to do. And he’s tainted now. Zachariah must have let them know that too.

If they catch him, they will not be lenient. And when they find out –

But Castiel will make sure, with all of his might, that it does not come to that. He will escape first. Somehow.  _Somewhere_.

(He does not attempt searching for their Father.)

* * *

So long ago, after their Father had left (wordlessly and without any notes left on the desk), Gabriel had managed to flee. He may be dead or he may still be alive – no one knows – no one has managed to find him. Or, perhaps, no one has  _wanted_  to find him.

Considering everything, he should still be easier to find (at least his vessel’s body, his Grace scattered across the growing expanse of the universe) than their Father. Because so few angels have ever seen His face and Castiel was never one of them and he has no idea where to begin. Perhaps, even, He has been reaped at last as Death swore to do in the Beginning (all living things must die; it is a circle and nothing natural can break it).

But Gabriel? Gabriel could still be out there, as opposed to Heaven’s Word – a traitor, a sinner – just as he. Castiel has to hope, at least  _try_.

If he is alive.

* * *

Hope is a human emotion.

* * *

For a few precious moments, he seeks out Heaven again. He claims that corner of a wide grass field – where a painter who died in his bath in 1958 now is eternally resting – just to catch his breath. He has been here many times, many times without gaining the attention of other angels. He would have hid here longer (almost forever) if not for the Apocalypse, keeping out the dead man’s sight and hearing, built a fragile little nest there and had the child - hiding them both away perpetually, until time begins anew with a new Creation. Now there is no time, even if it moves faster (and sometimes slower) here in this dimension than on Earth.

The soul occupying this Heaven remaining calm and unaffected, Castiel takes another leap, tasting the air, seeking out all possible trails. It is on the other side of the cosmos he must look, he knows. Gabriel – if he lives – would wish to be as far away from Heaven as possible and in the most unlikely places.

The Archangel would probably not even be Gabriel anymore.

(Though is not the human saying: ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’?)

* * *

Dean is praying again. Quietly. A cold glass of whiskey in his hand. It’s not meant to be a prayer – but Castiel hears it every time the man mentions his name, intentionally or not.

_“… and took off. Goddamnit! I don’t know what to **do**  – he’s not gonna say yes, he says, but what if he  **does**  – fuck, I should just forget him, that stupid bitch –”_

So he is alone then. And now he cannot track Sam at all, since Bobby Singer probably wouldn’t know where the boy has gone – he wouldn’t tell the man (Castiel guesses) if he wouldn’t tell his brother.

* * *

The illusion of a flat stomach and no dark circles under his eyes wraps around him like a piece of cloth. The strain is great, but he manages to fly straight to the given location and wavers only minimally as he lands. As the man’s back is turned, shoulders hunched, he doesn’t see this or notice the crisp flap of wings as Castiel uses them to steady himself.

Dean jumps when spotting him in the mirror as he straightens. “Damn it, Cas, you can’t do that! I’m gonna have a heart attack one day.”

Stepping back is an action both reluctant and relieved – he feels oddly safe near Dean, as if the Nephilim is drawn to the man’s soul and wishing to bond with it like a child does with its mother and father if they care for it well. But the closer Dean stands, the more likely his shields are going to waver.

“How’d you find me, anyway? I thought I was flying below the angel radar with that Enochian stuff on my ribs.” The man is very careful with emphasizing  _my_  not  _ours_ ; just himself, not Sam.

“You are. I asked Bobby where you were.”

(The man had growled, sitting in his wheelchair by his desk, fixing dark grieving eyes on him:  _“Tell me you’re getting your mojo back soon, feathers.”_  And Castiel had only been able to answer:  _“I’m sorry.”)_

“Figures.” Dean chucks the towel with which he had been cleaning the blood of a vampire off his face and beloved jacket. “Okay, what do you want? I didn’t pray or nothin’.”

For the fraction of a second a million different paths open up before his feet and he hesitates, albeit only so swiftly that a human brain wouldn’t be able to process it before it was over. “I require your aid.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Tracking an Archangel, who left Heaven long ago. I think he may be alive. Gabriel.”

“Gabriel?” The man’s eyebrows rise. “As in Holy Mary-Gabriel? He’s still kickin’, huh. But he’s not in Heaven?” And Dean’s thoughts follow closely: why would an Archangel leave Heaven – unless if he disagreed, rebelled, Fell – an enemy of their enemy is their friend – could come in handy – why would Gabriel leave Heaven? “Think he’d help putting a stop to all of this, stop Lucifer?”

“Maybe.” That is not all, but it’s what it would take to convince Dean to help.

“So, have you got a plan to catch his feathery ass?”

Castiel scowls a little. Dean clearly does not comprehend how powerful and dangerous Gabriel can be. “A summoning, not entirely unlike how we met after your resurrection. Without human error this time, of course.”

“Hey!”

Ah. It’s the term ‘human error’ that aggravated him. “No angel can escape this ritual. No one but angels have ever known and used it – Heaven has made sure such knowledge wouldn’t spread. Your ritual just barely sufficed to gain my attention. If he’s alive, Gabriel won’t escape from this one.”

“So you’re breaking  _another_  shitload of rules now by telling me this. Okay. I’m game.” He shrugs on his still slightly damp jacket. “When and where’s this show gonna go down?”

“Tonight, midnight.” Yes, that’ll be ideal. “But first there’s something I must obtain.”

* * *

He could have done this alone, he knows. But if he fails, if Gabriel already is dead, it will not matter. If he isn’t – if he comes … A summoning requires energy, and already he is spending so much to keep his lies up and the child alive. Gabriel might understand and give advice, maybe even aid (though that is just wistful thinking). Most importantly, if Gabriel could support their cause through the Apocalypse, Castiel would get a chance to escape and still leave the Winchesters with some protection.

From what faint memories he has of Gabriel – he’s so much younger than the Archangel, tiny and insignificant in comparison – he was just, righteous, even kind. Of course, all angels are righteous, which, Castiel has begun realizing, is not necessarily good. At least not good for the Earth and humankind. Absolution can make and destroy. But kindness – that is a rare trait. True kindness. Maybe it wasn’t all so, but close enough. And he was playful, a bit detached from the rest of the Host. Never liking abiding all of the rules. Always stretching them a little. A king of illusions.

It feels good knowing he doesn’t face this uncertain fate alone. Gabriel wouldn’t harm Dean Winchester; the man is safe. And his child draws comfort from being near his glowing soul. When his unborn one is content, Castiel also feels a little more at ease.

* * *

Last he was in Jerusalem was many, many years ago, much further back than a human is possible to remember. He did not have a vessel them and he did not speak and no one saw him. Yet many of the walls have remained the same and the sand has merely turned slowly, some grains new to the sunlight and others old and the wind is just as hot and arid. He folds his trembling wings tightly against his back as he swiftly wanders the streets, destination clear in mind. (It was by accident he had landed so off; soon, he is aware, he will not be able to fly at all.)

The holy oil is easily obtained and, lending as much Grace as he can spare, he takes flight again toward Dean who’s waiting in the motel room.

At once as he slows down and appears to rematerialize (only to the human eye; fact is, there is no ‘zapping’ involved as Dean likes to put it, merely flight at such high speeds that, without Grace holding them together, any other being would be torn apart at a subatomic level) he misjudges his landing zone again, though not as badly as before. He stumbles against the back of a chair, over which is draped a plaid shirt with blood splatters on it from Dean’s last hunt. It falls over with a crash which draws Dean’s attention. The man snaps into an attack position, ragged knife at the ready, his other hand reaching for his gun – then he realizes it’s not a threat. “Cas!”

“Oh,” Castiel says. “I miscalculated.”

At least he manages to keep a tight, if slowly slipping, grasp of the illusion. He puts the oil on a nearby table, struggling not to show how he wishes to sag his shoulders, crawl up and hold himself, will away the pain.

“You okay?”

It’s such an utterly  _human_  question and he should have realized sooner how closely Dean would look at him, how honest his concern would be, that it would show. After all, his soul has always been so bright and compassionate to those he considers family – and, slowly, he is starting to be included in that. Friendship. Because he rebelled for them, Sam and Dean, went against Zachariah and orders – risking  _everything_  (yet Dean doesn’t seem to understand just how dangerous that is, what exactly it  _means_ ). “Yes. Yes.” Dean mustn’t worry for him right now. Their only concern should be finding Gabriel.

The Archangel could be their hope or their fall.

If anything, the end would be swift.

* * *

“Hang on, what do you mean  _I’ll_ survive? You think, what, the guy’s gonna smite you? You’re in the same boat. He skipped Heaven and so’ve you.”

“It is not as simple as that. But yes, there is a chance he will join with us. I am unsure what his feelings are about the Apocalypse. I never knew him well.”

Dean’s eyes glint with curiousity. “So, you’ve met him then? What’s he like? Badass Archangel – can’t be  _too_  stuck up if he took off.”

It’s slightly amusing, the man’s tone, that mixture of humoured and not-really-awed-because-most-angels-are-dicks. “I was young then, barely out of fledglinghood.” It’s strange to give such information so freely. Angels do not experience childhood and private lives the way humans or other beings do; they grow, yes, but are always trained to be soldiers, from their first shuddering breath after being Created by the Father (for He is the only one with the allowance to make new full-fledged angels). Yet, it doesn’t feel bad. He knows many intimate details about Dean and Sam that they surely would find discomforting if they were aware. “We spoke merely briefly. He was rather playful, for an Archangel. Somewhat of a trickster – before the Fall, both he, Raphael, Michael and Lucifer we much closer…inseparable, almost.” He trails off. He repeats: “I was young. Things have changed since.”

“Gabriel and Lucifer were buddies. Right. Things you know.”

He gives the man an incredulous look. Hasn’t Dean understood? “Of course they were, Dean. We all were. All angels are siblings. In the beginning there was no angel-on-angel violence. Lucifer was the first to rebel and be cast down – others have Fallen too, in different manners, like Anael, but Lucifer … Our Father did not speak much of it, except for the prophecies regarding the Apocalypse.”

“Must’ve freaked you guys out.”

“We weren’t,” he says, pauses, glancing at Dean, “capable at the time to ‘freak out’. That is an emotional response and something which we normally aren’t allowed.”

Silence falls over the room and Dean says nothing aloud but Castiel can hear his surface thoughts clearly:  _you poor bastards._

 _Yes,_ Castiel wants to respond.  _We always have been._

How can they have remained this ignorant and blind for so, so long? How many eons have not passed without him ever hesitating?

* * *

(He is a well slowly being emptied, drop by drop.

At the bottom is a supernova waiting to be ignited.)

* * *

The ring is neat and burning red and the Enochian words falling from his tongue easily, yet his Grace is shaking with effort.

The first sign: the trembling walls, unsteady floor, a sudden hail of rain. Then, the quiet. The lightning flashes and settles and the thunder dies. The Archangel tries resisting, tries badly and Castiel, as a last effort, broadcasts – so dangerously, so easy for  _anyone_  to pick up –  _It’s I, Castiel, I wish only to speak, it’s urgent._ And he adds in a moment of human weakness:  _Please, brother. Please._

Gabriel has always had a weak spot for humanity.

He appears in a flurry and not at all like that. Master of imaginary things, of building secondary temporary dimensions. The abandoned building, its windows shattered by winds long before, takes the shape of someplace lavish and rich where nothing is broken. The body is a vessel that Gabriel took centuries and centuries ago, and though its face is relatively young, his eyes are very old, very tired even as he grins amiably at them – then frowns at the circle.

“Hello, Cassie. Fancy meeting you here.”

* * *

“That’s him?” Dean hisses on his breath, staring as Gabriel unwraps a strawberry lollipop and puts it in his mouth. “ _That’s_  Gabriel the Archangel?”

It’s the Trickster Loki, too. The one to corner and taunt and toy with the brothers; the one who’d killed Dean a hundred times before Sam’s eyes to make them realize just how co-dependent they are of one another. Of course, a simple wooden stake cannot kill an angel. 

The hunter’s eyes narrow dangerously and he takes a step forward. “ _You_!”

The Archangel does not seem overly bothered. He should be, Castiel thinks, before he remembers that Gabriel is not nearly as human, as close to Falling, as he, and may not experience emotion or fears or strange sudden impulses. Or he may have spent enough time watching and waiting that he’s simply lost the ability to fear any of the Winchesters.

“Yeah. Hi, Dean. Let’s put all that behind us, yeah? So, Cassie dragged you along, huh.”

“You’re a freakin’  _angel_. You.  _Jesus_.”

“Flattered, but no. Guy’s upstairs and I’m really not. Now let’s get to the point. Why the summoning, little brother?”

“I had to,” Castiel says, interfering before Dean can step up and attempt punching the Archangel in the face, which the man clearly as an urge to do. “Are you aware that Lucifer has been set free from the Cage?”

Gabriel’s face falls; his Grace gaining a slight blue tinge and the wide shadows of his wings curling in on themselves in distaste. Castiel becomes minutely aware that the Archangel can see  _his_  wings just as clear, how burned and shrivelled and weak they are, dragging to the floor heavily. (Dean is unknowingly standing atop the tip of his left one.)

“Yeah, I heard.” His true eyes are sharp and scrutinizing under the skin of his vessel. “And I see now you’re all fighting destiny.”

“Yeah,” Dean says wryly, “that’s kinda becoming our theme song.”

* * *

It’s then things turn downhill. A sharp, unnatural clash of thunder signals someone is coming and Castiel senses a strong presence, one which he remembers with fear from that night in Chuck’s residence. Gabriel stiffens a little, raising an eyebrow, pausing while he’s chewing on a new sweet.

“Raphael.”

The hunter glances between the two angels and swears. He looks at Castiel sharply. “You mean that one that nearly ganked you?”

“Yes. I believe he has come to fulfil the orders to kill me.”

“Crap. Think you got enough mojo to fight the guy?”

Then suddenly Gabriel waves a hand, smiling. “You got an Archangel up your sleeve. She mightn’t be expecting that. It’s been  _ages_  since I saw old Ralph – wonder how she’s been doing.”

Everything is shaking. Then Raphael shouts his name like a curse and Castiel sweeps with his hand to kill the fire and Gabriel is stepping forth, the flames around him dying, drawing his blade –

* * *

(A tunnel of light.)


	5. TAKE TWO [act i] and lead us not into temptation

# TAKE TWO  
[act i.]

_**and lead us not into temptation** _

* * *

Ever since the Green Room, Cas has behaved weirdly. Well, more strangely than usual – guy’s an angel and has always been a bit odd, and he’s just started thinking for himself so maybe he’s just taking time adjusting. Freedom and angels don’t really mix, Dean and Sam have found out the hard way. When they try, when they taste it, they seem to lose it. Start seeking power and world domination. Fall, like Lucifer. They’re cast out and no angels seems to get that freedom is something  _good_ , that it’s what’s made humanity go around for so long.

Maybe Cas is freaking out, slowly.

But with everything going on he can barely stop to breathe nevertheless think – Lucifer is out there and the seals have fallen and his brother’s riddled with so much guilt and Dean is struggling to deal with the  _Apocalypse_  of all fucking things. All the while, those asshole angels are hunting them like stray chess pieces that have run away from the board. On top of that Bobby’s now hospitalized and Zachariah’s combing the Earth for them with a fine-toothed fork.

But it doesn’t begin here.

It begins during a night that Dean can’t remember.

* * *

For a little while he did, though. Before he fell asleep. The mattress was uncomfortable and lumpy and warm, and he hadn’t dared to image or dream about this before. Never expected it to happen. Vision slightly hazy and blood buzzing with alcohol, he had accepted it, accepted being given comfort (because this was the form it usually took – but not with some guy, not with a friend, not with an angel).

In the morning, he’d woken up alone and not thought twice about it.

* * *

(He still remembers Hell and the warehouse with Alastair while Cas stood outside listening to them both screaming. He remembers holding knifes in his worn hands.

But he has no idea how Uriel died. It wasn’t demons, but further than that Cas had never elaborated, and Dean had been in too much pain, physical and otherwise, to ask. The angel had simply said: “It was disobedience.”)

* * *

Another angel, Zachariah, chooses to make himself known and he, like Uriel, is a total dick and by now Dean has begun to anticipate that all angels are gonna be like this. To start with Cas was like that too – quiet and unreadable and absolute and arrogant in his right to Heaven – though he’s coming around now.

(He’d said: “My superiors have begun to questions my sympathies. I was getting too close to my charges. You.”)

But Sam, Sam has always been the praying type and he had tried to keep hope up that the angels are the good guys; the angels want to help them and not throw them into the deepest pit. And honestly, for a brief moment there as he took his first lungful of air after Hell, Dean might’ve thought:  _Good things never did happen. They’re just too good to be true._

* * *

Next time he sees Cas is a Wednesday, and it’s a shitty Wednesday and Sam’s run off to god knows where and Chuck is telling him he  _knew_ it’d all happen.

“How?!”

“I don’t know how I know, I just do!” The man is pleading in his pyjamas and looks terrified and Dean wants to bash his nose in.

Then there is a flutter of wings. “Dean, let him go,” an order and Dean steps back out of shock, reaction. “This man is to be protected,” Cas goes on, calm monotone.

What the hell?! Why would the angels care about an insignificant forum writer – who happens to be typing out his and Sam’s life, in  _insane_  intimate detail, and sell it in no-second-editions?

“He’s a Prophet of the Lord.”

... the. fucking.  _hell_.

And also: “One day, these books will be known as the Winchester Gospels.”

This time he isn’t alone to say: “You’ve  _got_  to be kidding me.”

* * *

After giving him the hint about the Archangel apparently sitting on Chuck’s miserable shoulders, Cas disappears swiftly, of course without leaving behind any notes. But it doesn’t matter. The guy’s busy and Dean can’t bring himself to care right now because his brother is too freaking close to Lilith and every devil in the universe.

The angel is (should be) just a prayer away.

* * *

The Apocalypse is coming.

Cas isn’t answering.

Not until he’s in the Green Room, trapped and alone and outside of his covered area. Cas looks like he’s been kicked and dragged through torn bushes and his gaze is wavering and he keeps trying to turn away. Like he’d rather run.

So Zachariah has them  _both_  on a leash then. And Sam’s out there without backup, about to kill Lilith (but then Cas says:  _She is the final seal. She dies, the end begins._ ).

Out there, there’s no one to answer their cries for aid.

* * *

“Dean, look-”

“Don’t say anything.”

“It’s okay. We just got to keep our heads down and hash this out, all right?”

His brother hesitates, sighs, sags. “Yeah, okay.” They’re gonna solve this. Somehow. A giant puzzle without a game plan.

“All right, well, first things first – how’d we end up on soul plane?”

“Angels, maybe?” Sam suggests. “I mean, you know, beaming us out of harm’s way?”

Because Sam is such an important fucking vessel, a body to be used, a doll to be thrown aside once the play’s over. (But is the Devil’s play ever gonna be over?) Dean hates it. He hasn’t hated anything like this for a long while.

“Whatever. It’s the least of our worries right now. We gotta find Cas.”

Last he knew, the angel was about to be blown to bits by some archangel without name.

* * *

When they get there, Chuck’s house is a mess and there are tables overturned and fragmented scripts lying everywhere. At least the house is standing and unburning. The Prophet is curled in on himself, looking shaken and he reaches for a glass of whisky as he tells them about the angels fighting.

“Where’s Cas?”

“Gone. Dunno if he’s dead. There was this sigil – they vanished. They could both still be alive.”

Chuck doesn’t get to say anything more, because then Zachariah and two of this goons arrive dressed in false flesh and fancy suits and he looks  _so_ fucking pleased with himself to have found them here. And now that he’s aware of the extent of the angels’ plans and how they all wanted (maybe not Cas included - or did he always know?) to jumpstart the Apocalypse, for Dean and Sam to give in, Dean is even more pissed.

No one can be trusted.

It’s a relief to slap down his hand onto his blood and banish them all from sight.

The writer sinks down on a tattered couch, wincing as if in pain though he doesn’t appear to be injured. Not physically, anyway. His eyes are bloodshot. “This has been a really stressful day.”

* * *

They need a plan. Something. Something to  _do_.

Zachariah may be a giant two-faced douche but he was right: it’s the Apocalypse  _now_ ; there’s no time left over to sit rolling their thumbs.

* * *

“The Michaelsword? It can kill the Devil?”

“Yeah, supposedly.”

The picture in the book is colourful, of a man with fancy hair flying high above a battle field and it looks so ridiculous now – well it always has to Dean – but now, when he hears the word ‘angels’ all he thinks of are douchebags in fancy suits or, alternatively, he thinks of a ragged-looking not-quite-tax-accountant with an unnerving stare. Anyway, it’s nothing like this: none appears to be wearing glittering sword or halos.

“Well, let’s go find it then.”

It’s their only shot.

* * *

When Bobby goes down, eyes turning from black to brown before they close, Dean is more frightened than he’s been for a long while. Because he never fears for himself. He always fears for Sam and for those he cares about and now Bobby’s bleeding out, his spine cut open –

The ER is full of white noise. No one is around to tell them that everything’s gonna be okay.

* * *

He prays for a miracle. He shouts and swears and stubs his toe on a table and no one answers.

A miracle. How fucking hard can it be? Cas has healed them before, zapped over for little things. He could make a man walk again. He could. He _could_.

* * *

Then: hopelessness in a hospital, confining walls, prayers unanswered.

Now: a basement, his old man’s lockup, no sword to be found.

Only Zachariah and his goons and no backup and they don’t have any weapons to kill the bastards. Sam is the first to fall to his knees. Then there’s pain, buzzing inside of his head and his guts feel like they’re turning in on themselves. Blood tears its way up his throat. It’s hard to breathe, to speak, to yell Sam’s name.

Suddenly it stops. Sam crawls to his feet beside him and they are whole again, and Cas stands before them with a blade in his left hand. It’s coated in red. There are two bodies on the floor, the shadow of wings seared into the cement. The angel puts the weapon away, and briefly holds a hand each to their chests, and there is a burning sensation as he brands their ribs with intricate script and symbols in Enochian to hide them.

“You two need to be more careful.”

 _Thanks_ , Dean thinks wryly.  _Helpful_.

* * *

Now invisible to angels and demons alike, they seek refuge once again. And apparently there is no sword, was never a sword, not a physical blade, no bullet. Just Dean. Another freaking body to be possessed. It’s been written and foretold.

There’s no way he’s gonna fight Sam. No way. No way.

There’s got to be another way.

* * *

In nine in the morning there’s a call from Cas – he’s heard his prayers. Finally decided to listen to them. It’s so absurd, an angel calling on a phone; but the guy can’t track them anymore. A couple of minutes later he appears, only to hesitate at the doorstep and say he cannot heal Bobby for whatever reasons. Cut off from Heaven. Weakened. On the run or an exile or something like that, because he tries to oppose the coming Apocalypse and disobeys orders –

Dean doesn’t really listen, blood rushing past his ears too loudly.

(There’s a piece missing in his head.)

“I’m sorry,” Cas says before he walks away.

* * *

Ellen and Rufus are stuck in River Pass, Colorado, in a town full of demons and dead people.

They see the red Mustang early on, but think too little of it. That’s a mistake.

* * *

Countless useless exorcisms and needless killings later, they manage to cut off a simple metal band from around War’s finger and suddenly, suddenly there are no demons anymore. They were never real. The Horseman tricked them all.

The drive out of town is fast and quiet.

* * *

Sam doesn’t trust himself and Dean cannot trust him and everything so fucking messed up. He misses the past, when stuff was simpler, easier. When he could still trust his brother. Before he was hooked up on demon blood and they’re all jumping at shadows.

They part at a hill under a brilliant sun, their minds dark and angry.

Maybe it’s for the better, this. To go separate ways. Dean tries to convince himself that as he watches Sam go, the doors closing.

* * *

Cas finds him in a motel just after another successful, empty lonely hunt – a ganked vamp this time – when his hands are still covered with blood. The angel appears to be a little unsteady on his feet but he straightens and doesn’t say anything about it, and Dean doesn’t ask. He isn’t surprised Bobby would give the angel his coordinates.

The angel’s first question is: “Where is Sam?”

Dean’s first answer is: “Me and Sam took separate vacations for a while.”

* * *

Apparently there is more to the world than enemies. There could be one Archangel, one out there in the mass of black, willing to help. And if they got a way to trap the guy, Dean can go for it. They could use an ally, especially now that Cas seems to be slowly losing his mojo or whatever.

But he was never expecting this.

The Trickster fucking  _smiles_. “Hello, Cassie. Fancy meeting you here.”

* * *

He’s barely managed to get his bearings over the fact that the Trickster is Gabriel the Archangel, the one who’d given the news to the Virgin Mary, that it’s  _Gabriel_  of all beings, when another Archangel arrives and chaos breaks loose. Raphael has come to kill. The walls tremble and Cas breaks the circle of holy fire, letting Gabriel out. The guy stretches, flexes his arms – then there’s noise and white light and Dean is covering his eyes so that they won’t be burned out of their sockets.

After the violent thunder, silence settles.

Cas flickers out of sight and the battle’s over and the two Archangels gone; maybe they finished each other off, Dean doesn’t know and he has more pressing concerns right now, such as  _where the hell_  Cas has taken off now, _damn it, Cas_  –

* * *

He needn’t worry for long. The angel flickers into sight after half a minute.

He doesn’t remember ever disappearing. That’s disturbing. It wasn’t a sigil-caused banishment; rather like someone, something had plucked him out of the room and Dean doesn’t know what thing could do that. Except maybe other angels, he’s not sure. And Cas can’t for his life remember. The guy just looks around, turns to him, a strange lost look in his eyes.

“…Cas? Cas. Explain to me what the hell just happened, man.”

“I –”

The angel disappears with a flutter of wings before he finishes the sentence. Dean’s pretty sure he was gonna say: …  _don’t know._

* * *

Now he’s lost Sam and Bobby’s unable to walk and Cas is gone and Gabriel, that unlikely ally they may have had, could be dead or forever locked in some celestial battle with Raphael for all he knows. There’s no one to call. He considers Jo or Ellen, briefly, but – they have their own troubles. He’s not gonna angst himself out on them.

Dean buys another beer and tries to make sense of the world.

* * *

The End is coming.

(It’s going to happen in Detroit.)


	6. TAKE TWO [act ii] but deliver us from evil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _**Trigger warning!** This chapter deals with the warning/tag "child death", and is quick but rather graphic. Also sort of "character death" but not really (you'll see). You can skip the last few paragraphs to get past that (though it may be mentioned later in the fic as well)._

# TAKE TWO  
[act ii.]

**_but deliver us from evil_ **

* * *

He wakes up five years later.

* * *

The face of his future self is stern and bitter like he’s been ground to a million little pieces and there’s no one left to put them back together, too little glue to sustain him for much longer.

His brother is dead. Gone. Said yes to Lucifer. This is the End.

The world outside is slowly turning to grey ashes. Nothing new grows on Earth anymore.

“… Bobby?” he asks. “Ellen, Jo? Cas?”

Bobby’s dead – so is Ellen. Jo’s still there, barely, hanging onto the thin thread of hope that Dean, this other older weary Dean who he doesn’t know, will fix things. Kill the Devil, fight,  _fight_  and find a cure to this madness. And Cas, Dean tells him, Cas is broken, a tattered shell that no one knows anymore and Dean has quit talking to him.

Heaven has long since abandoned the world.

_Please, let this be a bad dream._

* * *

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says, curled up on himself.

He’s underfed and ragged, sunken cheeks speckled with stubble, eyes watered out. His usual accountant tie-and-trenchcoat attire is gone, replaced with rough plaid and jeans and a tattered jacket that looks suspiciously familiar. His eyes widen with sickening delight/relief/resignation/desperation as he accepts a packet of God knows what kind of pills from Chuck, who looks apologetic and like he’s trying to want to help, really, he just doesn’t know how. The Prophet glances at him before slinking away.

The former angel ( _He’s human now,_ he’d told himself earlier when bound to a chair, gun pointed at his head;  _lost his wings years ago._ ) swallows them dry. It’s weird and so fucking wrong to see him attempt a little smile. Like he’s happy to see him. Why would he be happy to see him? This Dean, his other self, has abandoned Cas and Jo and everyone and so many are already dead. 

The rest are dying.

“… Hi,” he says. Uncertain. Last he met him Cas was still an angel who had never wept and now he’s sitting here, weak and human and some drug-junkie and Dean is just scared to look at him.

The words are fast, spoken on a single breath. “You’re real. I mean, word spreads fast around here. You’re from the past. I didn’t – I didn’t believe,” Cas says and that’s not his voice – that shouldn’t  _be_  his voice. He sounds frailly human. “I didn’t know what to believe. But you’re here. How are you here?”

“Yeah,” Dean says. What the fuck is he to believe? “I’m real. Someone or somethin’ sent me back but I’ve no idea who, or why, and I’m tryin’ to figure that out. And how to get back.” He needs to get back. Away from this damned future. This wasn’t meant to happen. (They were going to find that happy ending, fight for it, clear everything up.) ”So, you’re human now? The other –  _myself_  – he never said why.”

He might have expected the ex-angel to flinch, to shrink but this reaction is so  _violent_  even in its smallness. It’s as if yet another part of Cas just fell off of him and died. And Dean has never seen him cry, but now his eyes are gleaming and he looks away like a doll that’s been carelessly thrown at a wall after the child has finished playing with it.

“Yes,” he says, finally. “I imagine he wouldn’t.”

“So? Was it –” Sam. Sam-who-is-no-more. “– Lucifer?”

“No. It was all … all myself.”

* * *

There was a beginning, Cas tells him, a beginning that Dean no longer can remember. A wall built across his mind. A failsafe. “I’d remove it now. It’d be easier to show you. But … I can’t. Not now.”

Instead, he dreams:

There is a myth, a forbidden legend among angels. The ancient source of vessels, the story goes. No one really knows and right now it doesn’t matter. Cas calls them  _Nephilim_ , the offspring between angels and humans.  _Abominations_ , he calls them, voice so brittle.  _Sin,_ he calls them, not knowing what the word even means.

Dean hadn’t thought his life could be turned anymore inside out than it already is.

Oh, he’s so, so wrong.

* * *

“W-we what?”

“Had sex,” Cas says like it’s the easiest most obvious thing in the world to admit. Perhaps it is, now, in this future.

“I, I don’t remember that happening. Like  _ever_  happening,” Dean says weakly, crazy laughter building in his throat. Okay, this is a dream. Definitely a very, very freakish dream where the air tastes wrong.

“I made sure of that,” the former angel says, an old ache to his voice almost like sympathy, a shadow of regret. Like he means to say: _I didn’t want to but I had no choice._

The hunter forces the laughter to die, willing his pulse to settle at a more normal rate, and tries not thinking too explicitly about exactly what this Cas-who-isn’t-really-Cas once did with him - the other him, before when he was younger when his brother was still alive. If he makes too many pictures he’s going to lose his mind for real. “…Okay.” A breath. So, Cas lied. Again. Removed stuff from his memory. Not the first time someone’s screwed around with him and his mind and twisted it all into a mess – no big deal. “Okay,” he says again, not steadily at all. “Why?”

He’s not sure if he’s asking  _Why did you sleep with me?_  or  _Why did you force me to forget it?_  Because sharing the bed with a freakin’ angel, a friend – they’re friends, aren’t they? sort of? yeah? – that’s not normal. That’s not … that’s not meant to happen. (If he’d known, it could have changed everything. At least Dean thinks so. He could have made some other better decisions sometime and he could have understood why Cas was looking at him like that, sometimes, too long and too intense – well he always did, but … If he’d known. _If he’d known_.)

Is he the reason Cas fell?

Bile rises in his throat. He wants to go back – home.

“Because –” And Cas looks at him and Dean wants to build a fort and hide in there. “– I was afraid.”

* * *

“… so, uh, ‘Nephilim’. What’s that all about? Why’d you tell me that story?”

A frown etches into Cas’ brow, almost hidden by a long uneven fringe. His eyes are dark. Hands knotted in his lap, shaking.  _Shaking_. Dean has never seen that in him before.

“You deserve to know,” he says very quietly.

* * *

It happened under the caved-in roof of an empty barn somewhere in Illinois. Castiel had found the irony fitting. For it to end where it began. He took a bus.

There are gaps here, in his memory. Blanks filled with rage and grief and pain and longing for home (he had nowhere to run). In-between those, everything is sharp. He had prayed, he says, to Dean but the human couldn’t hear, of course. He had prayed to other angels, for some kind soul to come and take pity, for his Father who never answered, and he even prayed to Gabriel, a brother he never got to know.

(Gabriel is dead. A lot of angels are. Also Anna Milton was found again and turned into a servant of God and didn’t remember her human life, and that, Cas says, is another form of death – like he knows what it’s like. Those who wouldn’t obey, who tried to stop the Apocalypse after all and save humanity, they were taken, twisted and wiped clean, reconditioned. Those who fought too much were cut open and left to bleed out and Cas says he knows only a fraction of the names now. The rest are forgotten.

Dean has no idea who they are, those that Cas mentions with a wistful whisper of despair, brothers and sisters of old. The list is incomplete and there’s no graveyard for them. And then a lot of other angels have died in the battle against the demons set loose on Earth, the gates to Hell open wide now, tearing a hole in the fabric of reality. Nobody misses the angels anyway or want them back, Cas says. The other, older Dean-who-isn’t-him certainly doesn’t. And Sam-who-is-no-more will never be saved by them.)

Praying had been a mistake. Because angels can always hear.

At that point Castiel had been nearly human. His wings already shrivelled up and dead. And there, alone, he’d borne the pain of birth like a blessing because he had this faint hope that afterward, salvation would come. As was the promise of their Father: there is a Heaven, there is always a Heaven and though he had fallen and lied and sinned, he had  _hoped_  –

Some of Raphael’s followers found him. They never hesitated, because that was what they were trained to do and even through the rage, Castiel felt a twinge of pity. He had been one of them once. He had felt no remorse. But that wasn’t now.

Blood splattered upon the ground and Grace bled out, and after, all fell quiet, cries never heard. Much of the blood was his own. His vessel, his body now, weakening already. Jimmy Novak died that night, Cas says, the man’s soul reaching for Heaven, and all that was left was a body that breathed mechanically, inhabited by an angel that was dying.

Castiel was lost, and he almost died too.

He never got to hold his daughter while her heart beat. All of the Grace she had devoured in the womb hadn’t been enough to save her, to protect her. And that was penance. They would have dragged him back to Heaven with them, but he had managed to take one of the angels’ blades even as he was blinded with grief untouchable and incomprehensive, turned it on his former siblings. He never heard the bodies hit the ground. Instead, he had cradled the small corpse of the Nephilim as it slowly grew cold and he hadn’t known how to properly grieve. Nobody had ever told him now.

(He’d never gotten a glimpse of her soul. But he still dreamed that he had, and that it was beautiful.)

* * *

At the same hour, Sam was in Detroit and Dean was fruitlessly chasing after him.

* * *

For three days, Cas tells him, he walked. Another penance. Fitting in its bitterness. He shouldn’t even had made it that far but he couldn’t make himself let go of his daughter. By chance, a kind stranger, a human soul which he no longer could look at and bask in its glow, lent him a phone and he managed to call Dean. Find him, eventually. The man had come for him in the Impala without his brother.

(Sam was already dead.)

And Cas had waited on the threshold of an old church, sitting under the bell as it tolled in the dark of dusk, still not letting go of the lifeless child. He no longer prayed. He hasn’t since that moment. He is certain that his Father is departed.

That night (confronting the man while wearing blood and guilt and so many lies), he’d told Dean the truth.

* * *

“You –  _he_  was angry. Very angry, for a long time. And I understand. I do. I’d betrayed you, your trust. You deserved to know she was your daughter, what was going on. But I had to hide it. Zachariah – there was re-education and an angel ... Naomi. Yes. That’s her name. It’s vague, now. I don’t really remember the re-education, just, vaguely these impressions of a white room and a voice telling me what to do and what to forget.”

Dean, this young Dean who hasn’t been through any of this yet, just stares at him in silent horror. Doesn’t know what words to form.  _How_  to form them.

His  _daughter_. Oh god. Oh fucking god.  _His_  daughter.

“Dean, I’m not angry with you. I brought this upon myself.”

_His daughter – a tomb._

* * *

Castiel burned the body in Bobby’s salvage yard (which soon will cease to be used) in Kansas. Dean wasn’t there. He was busy trying to build an army. It was his first funeral, but not the last. The ashes had spread with the afternoon wind. He’d never given her a name.

(The Croatoan virus had already begun to spread.)

“… I miss her,” Cas murmurs. “I still do.”

He reaches out and takes another handful of pills, and on his arm there are the scars from syringes. Dean doesn’t stop him, his thoughts struggling to catch up with this reality and accept it because he doesn’t fucking want to and, oh god, that was  _his_  child, he had a child with an  _angel_  and the world is already tipped over the edge and that was _his daughter_  –

* * *

“I just let you be alone?” Dean asks hoarsely. Just like that? His brother was dead and they were both miserable and the Apocalypse coming and he didn’t even stand at Cas’ side for five freaking minutes to say goodbye to their child? What kind of bastard would –

 _Oh, but I **am,**_  he thinks sharply, biting his tongue.

“Dean,” Cas says softly and smiles (he shouldn’t fucking  _smile)_  oh so gently. “I’ve forgiven you. I did that a long time ago.”

* * *

For a long time afterwards in that past-that-hadn’t-been, the fallen angel and the man didn’t speak and didn’t look at one another and didn’t hold each other as they cried. Outside the windows, the world was slowly growing cold and dark and cities were falling.

On a December morning that same year, Lucifer wearing Sam’s body had appeared on the edge of the yard and Castiel had looked at him without seeing his true face or his wings or Sam’s soul tucked away in shadows. He just saw Sam’s face smiling and gleeful and pitiful, and Lucifer had said:  _Let me give you an offer, Castiel. You just have to join me. Don’t you want to see your daughter again?_

But he couldn’t betray Dean again. Not again. Not even if –

And Lucifer had frowned:  _Think about it, Castiel. I have Death tethered now – think about it. Become my good obedient little solider and will give you back Grace. Think about it. I’ll be waiting._

* * *

“Do it,” Dean says because this is the end, it’s too late and his older self is mad and uncaring, about to send them all to their deaths. Cas deserves a little piece of happiness before the final grave is dug. Even the illusion of one. It’s not like him, he knows, to suggest something that crazy and wrong. But – his daughter. Cas should get to hold her, once at least, hold her and see her open her eyes. It’s not like the other Dean is gonna keep the rest of Camp Chiquita or the miserable world alive much longer. Dean knows himself too well, even when the future is a stranger. “Say yes. Get her back.”

_Give her a name._

(Happy endings are for fairy tales.)

“And then what?” Cas says, pale, voice discordant. “The world isn’t burning yet, just being torn at, caught in limbo. You won’t say yes to Michael. There is no final fight, just this, this white noise. If I take up the offer then I’ll leave you, Dean, and everyone here and this, this fight – it’s like giving up, isn’t it? I can’t leave you!”

 _Oh, Cas, you poor fuckin’ bastard,_  Dean thinks, angry.

“Do it,” he presses. “Listen to me, Cas.” The ex-angel turns away and he grasps his arms and brings his face closer: “Listen, Cas! That other me, that’s not me anymore. That’s just a guy you owe nothing. I never meant for this shit to happen, I never wanted – fuck, I just wanted everyone to be  _safe_  –”

Suddenly Cas chuckles. The sound is raw. “I once thought your problem was that you had no faith. I was wrong. Your problem is that you just don’t know when to quit.”

* * *

The first time Dean sees Cas cry it’s 2014 and winter is dying, and the man that he’s become clings to him and everything is human and cracked. When Dean – hesitantly at first, veins hot with anger – allows it and finally holds him, something falls apart and Cas makes a pained noise and whispers nonsense, whispers  _thank you Dean thank you thank you._

It’s Cas who initiates it. The kiss is warm and wet and salty and comforting in a way, but so wrong, this shouldn’t be happening and Dean is torn between leaning in and pulling away. Then Cas’ hands are tugging open his jeans and Dean has to push him away, repeating:  _No, no_. This isn’t what either of them needs. (He doesn’t want Cas to end up like him, even more broken and seeking comfort in one-night-stands.)

To his horror Cas simply says: “It’s not the first time.”

* * *

He walks away ignoring the pained pleas and marches across Camp Chiquita toward his older double, who’s sitting at a table polishing his gun and admiring the bullets in the sunlight. Not stopping, he violently grabs his shoulder, shouting at him.

His future self just looks at him grimly. “Look, I don’t even remember when this began anymore. Just let it be. This, this is war. It’s the fuckin’ End, if you hadn’t noticed, and look – just  _look_ , Dean. Look at these broken people. I mean, Cas, he’s been close to overdose, what? twice? thrice? I don’t know. I can’t protect them anymore. They just assume I’m some saint ‘cause I told them to fight it and now they’re willing to do what I order them to – so what do you want me to do, huh? Coddle them and promise Heaven?”

This is the only way to go down.

* * *

The plan to seek out Lucifer once and for all is foolish yet there is nothing else to be done and Dean has no alternatives to present. He’s out of his time and wants to go home.

Chuck takes him aside briefly before they pack into the vans full of weaponry. Apparently, the guy knew a lot more than he let on. But he never had a vision of that night either and he didn’t know about the Nephilim until it was too late and Heaven was already hunting them all.

“I haven’t had a lot of visions since, but last night …” Chuck starts but Dean covers his mouth with a hand. He doesn’t want to hear.

“I don’t care.”

“Dean, you gotta find a way back. Change all this. It’s a disaster.”

“Don’t I fucking know it.”

The Prophet takes pity and doesn’t tell him the details of the final chapter.

* * *

At a distance he hears the guns go off and demons shrieking in glee and Hellhounds’ claws turning up the ground. And then they’re all dead, Chuck and Jo and Garth and every other hunter and unlucky civilian they’d managed to rally to their cause.

Standing before them at the centre of the garden, Lucifer is smiling.

The offer is still standing. And now everyone is dead and his future self is going to sacrifice himself and leave everything behind. Dean watches, hidden, as Cas moves forward, putting down the gun. Lucifer wearing Sam’s face says, using Sam’s voice: _“_ So you’re content enough to say yes now, Castiel?”

Cas is.

There’s a Reaper, someone Dean has never seen but his older self must have because he flinches and cocks the gun. The man approaching, thin and tall in a black suit, says wryly: “Dean, I wouldn’t do that.” There are chains around his wrists. And he presents something in his left hand, his right leaning on a silver cane though it must be redundant. Cas takes the bundle, carefully, never once touching the Reaper.

The little child stirs. Suddenly the blood tainting her tiny neck is gone and she is no longer pale and cold, and she makes little content noises and a knife twists in Dean’s chest, slow and painful and he can’t tug it out. The smile on Sam’s face widens. “Brought back from Purgatory. Just what you wanted, Castiel.” The smile turns toward the Dean-who-is-dying. “Tell me something, Dean. Do you know where angels go when they die?”

Dean doesn’t … – he hasn’t even thought about it. Maybe Heaven? Is there a section sealed off for dead angels? Is there a sacred spot where they can go and visit siblings turned to ashes long ago?

And his older self says: “No.”

But he may be thinking the same thing and Lucifer hears it because he laughs. It’s vile coming from Sam’s mouth. “Heaven?  _Heaven!”_  His eyes flicker from Cas to Dean, back again, searching, dark: “No. Only human souls go to Heaven when their bodies die. We don’t have souls. We don’t even have real  _bodies_. Our Father never told us of our afterlife, if it exists. Maybe Purgatory, the Land of Abominations. That’s where the hybrids go, the vampires, the demon spawn – everything that doesn’t belong. Everything without a soul. Let’s find out, shall we?”

The Reaper steps forward and holds out a hand for Cas to take. “It’s time to go.”

Dean tries leaping forward, to scream  _NO!_  but he finds his body locked in stasis, muscles disobedient. All the while his future self just stands there, watching, silent, tightening the grip of the gun in his hand though it will do no good. Like he knew this would happen. Aware of the deal made without any crossroad.

Without pausing or looking back, Cas takes the Reaper’s outstretched hand and half a second later he falls down, still clinging to the child. She cries and the Reaper lays a gnarled hand on her forehead and she grows quiet once more. No bright souls leave either of their mouths. They just lie there, silent.

Lucifer seems amused by all of this. “Let me tell you something, Dean. About the circle of life. You and I, we were always destined to meet here. Like your brother had to meet me in Detroit. Rather fitting, I think. And now you’re here to complete the circle.”

Then he snaps Dean’s neck.

* * *

(Both of them trapped in the Green Room, Dean once accused Castiel of being soulless.

He was wrong, oh so  _wrong,_  and so terribly right.)

* * *

“You’ve come a long way to see this, haven’t you?”

Dean spreads out his arms, not yet carrying all of the scars that his older self has inflicted upon himself. “Well, go ahead then. Kill me.”

“Kill you?” The Devil looks down at the corpse of his vessel’s brother, nudges it with a toe, sighs. “Don’t you think that would be a little redundant?” Not-his-brother reaches for his shoulder and he flinches back. “You don’t have to be afraid of me, Dean. What do you think I’m going to do?”

“I don’t know, maybe deep-fry the planet?”

Sam’s body turns around then and he has a chance, he  _would_ have had a chance if he’d had some weapon to kill angels but he’s utterly defenceless now. Without caring for the death littered on the ground, Lucifer examines the blooming garden, musing aloud, twisting a red rose in between rough fingers.

“Why? Why would I want to destroy this stunning thing? Beautiful in a trillion different ways. The last perfect handiwork of God. Do you know, Dean, why He cast me down? It’s because I loved Him. More than  _anything –_ because He’s my Father, my reason for being. And then my Father created  _you_ , the little hairless apes. And then He ordered all of us to bow down before you, to love you more than him. And I said:  _Father, I can’t._  I said:  _These human beings are flawed, murderous._  Andfor that, God had Michael cast me into Hell. My own brother turning on me! Now, tell me, does the punishment fit the crime? Especially, when I was  _right_? Look at what the billions of you that have done to this world and how many of you blame me for it.”

A growl escapes from low in his throat. “You’re not fooling me, you know that? With this sympathy-for-the-Devil crap. I know what you are.”

“What am I then, Dean?”

“You’re the same thing, only bigger – the same brand of cockroach I’ve been squashing my whole life. An ugly, evil, belly-to-the-ground, supernatural piece of  _crap_. The only difference between them and you is the size of your ego.”

He smiles. Sam’s smiles were never that wrong and ugly. Dean can’t carve the memory out of his skull, but wishes that he could. “I like you, Dean. I get what the other angels see in you.” Then he takes a step back. “Goodbye. We’ll meet again soon.” He begins to walk away. Leaving him here surrounded by corpses.

Voice hoarse, Dean cries after him: “You’d better kill me now!”

The Devil stops. “Pardon?”

“You’d better kill me now. Or, I swear, I  _will_  find a way to kill you. And I won’t stop searching.”

“I know you won’t. I know you won’t say yes to Michael, either. And I know you won’t kill Sam. Whatever you do, you will always end up here. Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up here. I win. So ... _I win_.”

“You’re wrong.”

So pleased with himself, so pleased, smiling, so happy with the ending, Sam’s voice says: “See you in five years, Dean.”

The lights go out.

* * *

He wakes up in the yellow glow of a streetlamp falling through the window. There are no infected Croatoans raving outside seeking to destroy the world. Shocked, relieved,  _was it just some freakish dream?,_ he heaves himself up from the bed, fumbles with his jacket to find his phone.

First: Sam. Then he’s got to find Cas before the angel runs away again.

He’s got to find out if it’s true.


	7. TAKE THREE [act i] freedom is a length of rope

# TAKE THREE  
[act i.]

_**freedom is a length of rope** _

* * *

“Castiel.”

This is a dream. If angels could dream. He vaguely recognizes the voice. Feeling lost and out of control, he’s sleeping and his vessel feels far away. A boat that’s floated away from the shore, carried away on waves he no longer can see. Someone has thrown away the anchor.

“Open your eyes. I know you’re awake.”

Something beckons him to  _obey_  – a terrible urge that, yet, doesn’t bring any comfort or satisfaction, just this knowledge that it’s the right thing to do. That he should do it. Must. Have to. Like a reprogrammed setting starting from zero again.

 _…Father?_ he tries to ask. Is that His voice? So utterly sweet, constant, (secure?) and repeating:  _Open your eyes. I know you’re awake._

The angel standing before him is like a ghost that’s haunted his footsteps for lifetimes but he has remained unaware until now. Suddenly his Grace recoils and - no, no it’s not  _his_  Grace, not anymore. The Nephilim squirms as if trying to get away. His spine feels slightly shattered. His hands and feet are strapped down and the angel looks at him like a leader does at an underling that hasn’t behaved –

– but what it this cold place? where are Dean and Gabriel? how did he end up here? did Raphael –

“Hello, Castiel.” She smiles, but it’s not a kind smile. There’s nothing human about it (but why would there be?). What is this place? Why is she – why doesn’t he know her name – why would –

“Now. Don’t try to struggle.”

* * *

– there is a gaping hole in his head and little pieces are being torn out of him –

* * *

“What the – Cas! The hell’s going on? You zapped out for like a minute –”

No. He didn’t. His wings haven’t moved.  _He_  hasn’t moved.

Outside the windows of the abandoned house, all is quiet. The thunder has settled and the ashes disappeared and the circle of holy oil is no longer burning. There are footsteps leading away from this dimension into some pocket universe of a trickster’s making but nothing else, nothing else. Raphael – Raphael is gone. And …. Gabriel?

Yes. He was here. Before. But – now? His brother, gone. Again. Raphael – but why isn’t he dead, if the Archangel came hunting for him? he should not have lived through that. should not have seen. should not have. should –

(He thought angels didn’t have afterlives.)

A voice nudges his side, concerned and hyper-aware and warding off danger. “…Cas? Cas. Explain to me what the hell just happened, man.”

“I.”

_Don’t know._

He turns. Disappears. Panicking. Something, something’s lacking. A hole in his head. A hole in his head. Someone’s dug a hole in his head -

(Dean is left staring at the spot the angel had occupied just a few milliseconds earlier, uncomprehending.)

* * *

“Tell me,” she says, smiling, “what are you supposed to do?”

          OBJECTIVE:  _Kill the Righteous Man._

No – she says, “Not yet.”

          CORRECTION:  _Protect the Righteous Man_.

Wrong. False order. Not the orders of Heaven. No, no,  _this_  is the order: to ensure the Apocalypse; the final fight between Lucifer and Michael –

– no no no he doesn’t want to do that, he doesn’t want the end to come because the world will burn and Dean will  _fall_  –

          OBJECTIVE:  _Dean Winchester._

          TASK:  _Make him say Yes._

He has to say yes to Michael. To the beginning of the end of the world. It’s been Written.

“And who gives you orders? Who do you serve?”

 _Heaven_. The words stuck on a loop with an uneven beat:  _I serve Heaven._

(Their Father is gone or already dead and they have stopped looking, given up and let it be and no one has any hope for His return. Instead, they cling to the ashes and the leftover promises of a New Heaven, something better and brighter and more real. They are so, so tired.)

“Very good, Castiel,” she says, smiling.  _Your chassis may not be as broken as it appears._

He cannot (will not, for a long time) remember her name.

* * *

All he can remember is Dean Winchester’s soul, warm and gentle and harsh around the edges and a night long ago and that he has to hide the Nephilim nestled inside him at any cost –  _at any cost –_

* * *

In the early memory of humankind when they hadn’t yet invented wings of their own or built any towers, before the disharmony in Heaven, angels descended on earth. And some began to Fall. Perhaps it’s the natural order, as their Father intended so long ago – for them to learn, for humans to be their teachers and not the other way around. But the Word has always been interpreted wrong. Maybe He never even said it.

Then, before the thought of Sin, some angels loved and hated and feared and they Fell, invisible and unseen by humans, unnoticed since at this time, there were no vessels. Such an idea was not yet perceived. They did not walk among humans, did not speak to them – merely watched.

Castiel hadn’t been created yet. But he’s heard whispers of the story which now is forbidden to tell because those angels, scarce and beautiful, had entered the humans dreams and told them the truth (as they believed it) and some had said  _yes_  – and so the first Nephilim had been born. Because truth is, even the most powerful, viable vessel will fade, slowly. All human bodies do burn out, angelic Grace ripping them apart. For some it just takes a longer time than others.

The first vessels were the descendants of the Nephilim, the story goes. But that is just a story and it’s no longer being told in Heaven (which has no children anymore to be taught), and has only become myths to be smiled at on Earth. No one remembers what is real anymore.

(The others, obedient and proud and seeing the Word as indisputable, made certain of that.)

* * *

The angels have put him down somewhere on Earth, he’s unsure of where and it doesn’t matter and nowhere is quiet.

Suddenly he screams:  _No! No!_

This isn’t what he wants. Wants to do. He has a wish and this isn’t it and he struggles, won’t listen, won’t listen to the poisonous voice whispering: _You have orders, Castiel, **obey**._

With all of his might he tries running instead.

* * *

For days and days he wanders – wings too heavy to use – without direction, a voice inside his mind yelling:  _Find Dean Winchester. Find Sam Winchester. Bring them to ruin._

At some point he comes across a kind human soul standing outside one of his Father’s houses, and she smiles at his ragged appearance, thinking him some homeless beggar and she puts a few coins in his hand. Confused he stares down at the cold little things and wonders what to do with them.

Two hours later he sits on a train headed for nowhere, staring out the wide windows as the world rushes past at an antagonizing slow pace.

* * *

He wonders if Gabriel lives; if Raphael destroyed him. He should not have – Gabriel is the oldest of them all, though no one cares about that since he fled. He was always the mouthpiece (they whispered: Castiel never saw), not the sword.

The sword – that was Michael, and Raphael.

Somehow fitting, the irony, the mirror images: now Gabriel has become known once more and, just like Michael is destined to fight Lucifer, his brother Raphael is fitted against him.

(No one cares for  _their_  vessels. There are no gospels being written about them.)

* * *

Unsure of how, the threshold before his feet is familiar. The door is simple, one among thousands of others just the same, in a neighbourhood just like this, in a city just as quiet. So he raises a hand – to knock, that’s the human custom (in the past he might have torn it down) –

(Once long ago he stood before doors, simple indistinguishable doors but for the smear of fresh lamb’s blood over the wooden frame, and he had passed from house to house, blade in hand, relentlessly and without remorse because he had never tasted such emotion and there were words pounding around his Grace: _Find the sons and destroy them_  –)

– and the door opens, a surprised figure standing there in a striped bathrobe, reading glasses perched on his nose. In his hand there’s a steaming cup of coffee. He looks tired, as if he has been working all night, barely surviving on whisky alone, and not slept properly for months. Which he may have.

Before he and Dean and Sam stumbled into his life, he was just a man with strange dreams and a strong urge to write down what he saw. Now he  _knows,_ and everything has become so much worse.

“Oh,” the Prophet says. “Cas. Uhm. Come in, I guess.”

* * *

“I don’t suppose you’ll want any coffee.” Silence. “Right. Probably shouldn’t right now, anyway. I wasn’t expecting company so, uh, ‘scuse the mess. You can sit if you want to. On the couch.”

That seems reasonable. Pleasant, somehow. A human thing to do. He lets his wings drop in a low slope, spread across the floor, as he takes seat, back aching, throat dry. They feel so heavy even if they’re still torn, burned by the Fires of Hell from when he dove through battle and the dark maze to find Dean’s soul, so long ago. They’ve never really healed, and his Grace is running too low for them to properly molt and heal again. Anyway - in the end - it won’t really matter.

“I’m just gonna, sit here,” the Prophet says, haltingly, gesturing at his desk. “And, um, write.”

For the first time in two hundred hours, Castiel speaks. “That’s fine.”

“Uh, great.” The Prophet awkwardly stumbles to his desk. Pours himself a drink, something strong (muttering on his breath  _God it’s too early for this_ , the glass clinking as he accidentally bumps it with the bottle. His liver is needlessly suffering and Castiel would heal it - the urge rests just right under his fingertips but his head hurts and his Grace is burning, again, always  _burning_. He cannot risk anything anymore. “Just shout if you need anything.”

This place is warded, even if the Prophet does not know. At the moment, Raphael is elsewhere. Busy fighting some other war. Nothing begins to tremble, there are no sudden lights. Unwillingly his muscles begin to relax. Already he has begun thinking of them as  _his_ , not as his vessel’s: every bone, every drop of blood rushing loudly past his ears, the steady heartbeats. They  _are_  his now.

Jimmy Novak is still sleeping.

* * *

It is a dream within a dream, and all is clear like the dew on the grass on spring mornings before the flowers begin to bloom. He recognizes this room. He has been here before. The panic room, the humans called it. Fitting. A good place to flee to in times of fear.

He stands in the centre of the room, waiting, as the fan turns lazily overhead, slowly shifting the stifled air around. The devil’s traps littered on the floors and walls do nothing to hinder him. But in this dream, a circle suddenly springs up, one he cannot cross.

Dean Winchester stands on the other side.

* * *

“… hey! Hey!”

It’s violent, sudden, this thing –  _waking_. He has never done it before and for a moment, terror grips him, new and fresh like tears of grief, and he is on his feet in a millisecond, armed, raising his blade –

“Whoa! It’s just me,” the Prophet says, backing away, hands raised. It is him, his soul. Familiar. Castiel lowers his blade, arm working mechanically. “Sorry. You fell asleep. I never thought angels slept. You, uh, must’ve dreamt badly.”

No, angels do not sleep. Not normally. Realizing the man is waiting for a response, Castiel inclines his head. “Thank you,” he says, voice hoarse. It feels good now to have left the dream behind, though his heart is racing in a strange way and he wills it to quiet down. For some reason, his hands are not truly steady.

* * *

Half-way into a book that the Prophet will not show him (it’s for the best), Chuck unexpectedly speaks up. “I had a vision a couple of nights back. There was another angel – an Archangel. You were there, too, with Dean.”

“Gabriel, yes. That would be correct.”

Another script upturned, he supposes, as he man sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Everything’s a mess,” the Prophet says aloud, as a thought undirected.

 _Yes_ , Castiel agrees. And who are around but them to unravel the knots?

* * *

Before he takes his leave with the next rising of the sun, the Prophet hands over a few words, important in their simplicity; there are a few papers in his hand filled with dark little letters. “Here, take these. It’s a first draft but, it may be useful. Important.”

Wordlessly he takes them, folds them and put them in his coat pocket. (And he doesn’t know yet but there they will lie unread for a long, long while.)

His wings more rested now, he stretches them out, takes a leap.

* * *

The yard outside of Bobby Singer’s residence is quiet. The man may be asleep, or up and researching or doing some other work in his study. The old hunter does not seem to follow normal human sleep patterns. Castiel looks around, but cannot find the Impala anywhere nearby.

He prays (but not aloud) that the boys are safe – meanwhile, that voice that is not his own continues to demand:  _Find them, find them, find them, destroy._

He manages to ignore it. The Nephilim gives him enough strength to do that, at least. Seize control of himself once more, for just a little while. The echo of a sanctuary.

* * *

“What’s it now, feathers?”

Last he visited the man was to find out the location of Dean, to gain his aid in summoning Gabriel. That had no turned out too well. Castiel cannot remember if he thanked the old hunter before he fled.

There is no particular reason for his visit. He just feels – empty. Lost. The feeling is growing day by day, like this hole someone’s digging inside of his chest as well as his head. There are little pieces missing.

He settles for asking, “Where are Dean and Sam?”

The hunter leans back in his wheelchair, pausing to turn over one of the man books scattered across his desk and reach for another. “On a job in Alliance, Nebraska. Some odd killings going ‘round.”

That would not be too far a flight, Castiel tries to convince himself. His instincts are fighting each other: the will to run and the desire to see Dean once more and the order, the  _order_  to find the brothers and  _break_  them –

The desire overwrites everything else.

 


	8. TAKE THREE [act ii] light

# TAKE THREE  
[act ii.]

**_light_ **

* * *

Then he finds out everything is wrong. The power surrounding the child the two hunters are speaking with is  _overwhelming_.

They cannot see him yet, he has made sure of that. He watches, listens, follows as the two leaves the house. A chill works its way down his spine. This is  _wrong_. This child shouldn’t –

Shame wells up within him then, and he has to look away for a moment, ignore what the brothers are saying to each other in hushed tones.

The child peers out from between the curtains, watching them walk away.

* * *

– there’s a voice, distant, familiar, strange, yelling at the back of his mind (constant):  _Abomination! kill it! destroy it, before it destroys Heaven!_  – never quieting:  _I gave you an order, Castiel! **Obey**!_

And he has a sense of not–being–there and then he’s back in the same spot before he can contemplate it. His hand inches toward a fold in dimensions near his coat pocket, where the sleek blade made of one of his feathers is hidden. He’s so close, so  _close_  to drawing the sword, to step forward toward the child who stands there unaware and –

But he stops.

* * *

 _Abomination_.

And once he would have agreed and acted without a thought, without doubt, even if it is just a child, a child with the extreme misfortune to have been sired by a demon. One day they will come to collect their prize and then all of Earth, all of Heaven is threatened.

But now he can’t. The Nephilim twists and kicks in the womb; and it’s too familiar, too much like –

* * *

He checks all illusions so that they’re holding before he makes himself known to the world. The brothers enter the motel room half a second later, Sam halting on the doorstep in surprise at seeing standing in the middle of the room, out of place. ”Oh. Hey, Cas.”

The young man glances at him, perhaps wondering if the angel has come bearing news of some new skirmish between angels and demons, if he comes bearing Word that the brothers need to hear, as if Castiel still is  _(if he has ever been)_  a Divine Messenger. When Castiel doesn’t seem forthcoming Sam turns toward one of the beds and fishes out his computer from a duffle bag. Dean doesn’t move to follow him.

“Cas?” A frown mars Dean’s brow. Of course, last time they met, he disappeared so suddenly – there’s a gap in his memory, though after that he did receive new orders, sudden instincts that weren’t this clear before. The man has reason to be curious and wary and even fearful.  _Especially_  fearful.

(If angels cannot escape from Heaven then a human should stand no chance.)

Yet, there’s something – something  _else_  in the man’s gaze. Something else he knows. Castiel looks straight at him but knows how much Dean hates how he reads minds (he hasn’t read him or Sam for months and months now), so he refrains from doing so. There’s only the occasional loud thought that just can’t be quieted down:  _he’s all right_  and  _it hasn’t happened yet_ – whatever that could mean.

“You okay?” the hunter asks.

It’s such a strange question. Castiel doesn’t know how to answer.

Instead he says, (unable to say that it’s lucky they found the boy because now they have to act and he doesn’t know  _what to do_ ): “That child you just met is half-demon, half-human, but it’s far more powerful than either. Other cultures call this hybrid  _cambion_  or  _katako_. You may know him as the Antichrist.” Words like that are useful and need no infliction. It’s the kind of words he’s ready to share, anyway, yet, and the less the brothers know of the true state of Heaven the safer they are.

“What, Jesse is the Devil’s son?” Sam asks sharply. Dean is still staring at him – it’s rather unnerving. “That’s why all this weird stuff is happening around him?”

“The Antichrist is not Lucifer’s child. Not in the literal sense of the word - your Bible gets more wrong than it does right. But yes, he is the source. He has the ability to alter reality to some degree in this, this field, this bubble around him. If found the boy will be one of the Devil’s greatest weapons in the war against Heaven.”

Eyes narrowing suddenly, Dean’s gaze swipes up and down across him and Sam glances at his brother in silent communication;  _what’s wrong?,_  the older brother shakes his head,  _it’s not important._ (But Castiel is certain that it  _is_  important, just like all secrets are _._ )

“Well, if Jesse’s a demonic howitzer, then what’s he doing in Nebraska? How come they haven’t gotten to him yet?”

The explanation can only be one: otherwise, they would have claimed the boy right after it was born. Because the birth of anything supernatural on Earth always causes shockwaves.

(The world will tremble when the Nephilim takes its first breath too.)

“The demons lost him. His great power is keeping him hidden,” he says. He wants to raise a hand, suddenly, make a physical shield (not just illusions) around his pregnant belly, but he cannot raise any suspicion from the brothers.

They’re all in danger.

“Great, mystery solved. With this force field thing around him they can’t find him, right?” Dean asks, this strange concern tinting his soul with an inexplicable shade of jade. If he weren’t just a child, Castiel is certain, they would have found a way to kill the boy, or tried to create a weapon out of him, something convenient and sharp.

If it only ever was so simple. “With Lucifer risen this child grows stronger and the effects of his powers will soon draw the demons to him, just as it came to your attention. The demons  _will_  find this child, one day, and then Lucifer  _will_  twist this boy to his purpose. And then, with a word, this child will be able to destroy the Host of Heaven or the whole of Earth.”

“Then we gotta find a way to hide him,” Dean says quickly, before Castiel can actually suggest using a gun and that is a relief making him want to sag his shoulders, unfold his wings.

His orders would have been clear, if Heaven knew – and they will be aware soon, if not already, of the child’s existence: angels will be coming to kill him. There is no other way. But – a child. A (free, innocent, unknowing, unable to choose its birthright)  _child._

* * *

They are sharing another look. Glancing at him. It’s nowhere as subtle as they believe. What secrets are they keeping now?

(And what has  _he_  not kept from them for so long? He has no right to demand anything from them.)

* * *

It’s easier than supposed to make the child see what’s going on. The difficult thing is keeping him from getting angry, growing upset. A tendril of this child’s emotion could easily tear them down.

He doesn’t want to leave. This is his home, even if he has never known his real mother. This is all he has.

“You’re not safe here,” Sam says gently. They have revealed their real names now, their true intentions. The boy is staring at them, quiet, pensive, afraid. And still believing that it’s true. (The boy hasn’t yet learned what  _lies_  mean.) “Demons are gonna be looking for you and they’ll know you’re here.”

The boy, so small and uncertain despite flooded with so much force, wraps his arms around himself. “Can – can I say goodbye to mom and dad?”

There is no haven Heaven or Hell can give him.

* * *

(In the past, so many times, Castiel has knelt and hid his face under heavy wings and whispered prayers to receive Revelation and to be Blessed, as angels are wont to; and he has sung praise to their Father in the high Choirs alongside countless other voices, as angels are wont to; and he hasn’t cried or begged for mercy or celebrated life. Because angels are not allowed to be so selfish to think that they, as a single Grace among a thousand others, may be so important, may be more than a piece on the board their Father set for them. In the past, so many times, he has knelt and prayed and told the empty air between atoms, somewhere wherein was promised that their Father was hidden ever-listening, and asked for the better of angels and humans and Heaven, but never for the better of  _himself._

He’d kneel now, he thinks - but, no. Not kneel. He cannot kneel anymore.

He’d pray, maybe, were there a safe church somewhere with walls so thick nothing could ever be heard - then, maybe, he’d recite all the names of his Father and he might have asked to be allowed to see a glimpse of a future when Heaven is someplace safe and where he could have his child and not be damned for the rest of Time. Send a prayer so vulnerable and true and outrageous, something that which a true angel would never dare to say, pleading for aid and hope in this cold uncertainty. Something which a true angel would never dare to do. They would never ask for something of their own, never in their Father’s name. A true angel would never lay such selfish claims.

Dean taught him that, he supposes. Even if Dean is so very selfless himself, he is also human. And humans have a sense of self that angels are not given when they are Made. Dean taught him that: how to be human. How to be selfish.)

* * *

Afterwards Dean and Sam go back to the motel alone. They’d left a letter, the only idea they could come up with (heartfelt and short and confused, leaving out far too much), for the parents who’ll come home from work in three hours to find the house empty and dark. The ride in the Impala is quiet, but Castiel does not hear.

The boy has hid himself on the other side of the Earth. He’s never wanted to fight.

The angel tries flying to Bobby with the news. But he finds his wings are difficult to move. It takes far too much longer than it should to get there, and when he lands it is unevenly, his breath short. A heap of papers fly off the desk and a book flutters open. The old hunter turns his head sharply in shock, grabbing for his rifle.

Then the man exhales, lowering the weapon. “Watch where you’re zapping, feathers. That’s my notes you’re messin’ up.” Bobby grabs one wheel and turns back to his desk, shaking his head a little, sighing, and even though he does not mean to Castiel can pick up stray surface thoughts, loud in the dim yellow light:  _What’s those idjits up to now?_

Castiel does not reply:  _They saved a life today._

* * *

The brothers arrive by car nine hours later. Sam, a bag slung over his shoulder, goes inside where Bobby’s waiting by his desk, already researching what could be the brothers’ next case. They had talked briefly on the phone, Castiel had overheard, how they had dealt with the child, how he’s wished himself away now, how they’ll probably – for the best – never hear of him again. Whatever their next mission may be will have to wait until morning, though, they need to rest their human bodies. (Soon Castiel will has to do the same.)

But Dean hesitates without following his brother inside, and then for some reason pulls  the angel aside, a hand hovering near his elbow. It’s a strange gesture, Castiel thinks. Dean has always been adamant about personal space, about unnecessary touches.

(Another reason he had made him not remember. Remembering would destroy too much between them.)

“Hey, you, uh, you okay?”

That question again. “I’m fine, Dean.” There should be no reason for the man to think otherwise. What has changed?

Dean is silent for a moment, contemplating. Several words seem to rest on his tongue and he hesitates again, trying to choose between them. Then, something within him sets. His soul appears sterner, determined, and he turns to him with his mouth pressed into a line, a slight frown on his face.

Briefly, Castiel flickers his wings, preparing to take flight again, if –

“Look, Cas, I dunno how to do this but we gotta talk. You know Zachariah zapped me to 2014 a couple of weeks ago?” Castiel flinches in surprise. He had not known. The expression on Dean’s face hardens. “Yeah, guess I never told you that. Or  _nobody._  Even Sam, ‘cause he’ll -” Here Dean stops, drops the sentence, rapidly picks up another one. Castiel can’t hear his thoughts inbetween, but his frown has deepened, and there’s a darkness in his eyes that should have to be there. “I’ve been lookin’ for you for a while since.”

This is new unexpected news. But he has turned off his angel radio now, so this is just one of many news that has passed him by unheard. He cannot bear to listen to the voices of his siblings anymore; cannot hint any more of their plans and he has no desire to either. Too much has already been destroyed. It sounds a lot like something Zachariah would do, though; had the angel been human, he would have been labelled  _cruel,_ but Castiel knows angels never bother with adjectives other than  _obedient._  And Zachariah is obedient, terribly perfectly so, a good angel in Heaven’s eyes - doing everything to ensure the coming of the Apocalypse and Lucifer’s second, ultimate Fall, making sure that Dean and Sam agree to their roles. It makes sense, then, for the angels to force one of the brothers to see  _(live through)_  a future where they did not obey. A future where the Earth burned without end.

 _How long was he trapped in the future? What exactly did he see?_  Castiel wants to ask, but fears that giving the answers would break Dean. It can’t have been a happy future.

(Castiel never read what Chuck had written to forewarn him. Then he would’ve known that Dean would turn and corner him and ask, finally, if that future was true and if their past now has happened just like future Dean claimed it had. But Castiel never read the draft.)

“Right.” Dean sighs, squares his shoulders. “I was sent back - forward – alone. Sam wasn’t with me then. And I met this, this other self,  _my_  future self. And future you. That other Sam, from that future, he was … He’d said yes to Lucifer. He was gone.”

That explains the dark anguish in his soul which Castiel cannot soothe, even though he tries. Oh, oh, he always  _tries._ (His great curse: he just doesn’t have the heart to turn away from humanity. from Dean. from all of the people he wants to save. to stop trying.)

“Dean, you must be aware that there are an infinite number of possible futures and only a few outcomes are truly determined. Zachariah is a master of illusions; he could have sent you into a dream, or possibly viewed a number of futures and found one that fitted whatever his goals where and sent you there. It’s not been written -”  _that they fail. that just one of the brothers says Yes. that the free will of humans prevails._  Castiel doesn’t know what end would best fit the sentence. Maybe:  _It’s not been written that everyone survives._

Something goes out of Dean then. He understands how Castiel meant to finish those words.

“Whatever. It’s a prophecy isn’t it? The big fight. They’re all so fucking  _certain_  we’re gonna say yes, both of us. Well, not Lucifer. I met him – as Sam. He said, he said, was so certain I was never gonna say yes. That … it would always come to that point, five years from now … That even if just _one_  of us says yes, we all fucking  _lose.”_  

He takes a breath. Shaky. His heartbeat is a little faster. Castiel has an urge to lay a hand on his shoulder and calm him, but he’s unsure if that kind of movement would be welcome now and, besides, that’s a waste of Grace he cannot afford.

“There was this virus, Croatoan,” Dean goes on, voice cold as he remembers; “and whole cities were erased. Fuckin’  _countries,_  maybe, even. I didn’t ask. I wasn’t myself anymore. Just – a stranger. Getting people killed. Innocent folk who had nothin’ to do with this crap, that ... that’d just been roped into it. It was,” and he inhales sharply, drags a hand through his hair, “it was a  _mess_. And you were – broken, Cas. Human and broken.”

Of course he must have been. Castiel doesn’t know if it’s a good thing he was even alive in the future Dean had lived for a brief time. If he’s alive it meant the angels failed to catch and kill him, he managed to flee, and then, maybe, with Lucifer on the loose, one Fallen Seraph with a Nephilim would not have been a major concern to Heaven. Raphael would have had other things to do than to chase him.

 _Did I have my child in that future?_   he wants to ask.  _Was the Nephilim among those who died for you, Dean? did I ever see it, did I hold its soul? did it have a beautiful soul, Dean?_ he craves to ask.  _Was that when I became human, when I held the Nephilim for the first time? is that what made me broken?_ he almost  _needs_  to ask, but doesn’t know how.

He tries to console the hunter, because that’s the human thing to do. “Not all things are predetermined, Dean. Things can be changed.”

“Yeah. Keep thinkin’ that,” Dean says, a serrated edge to his voice. “Other stuff happened, in that future. Not just death.” (but it  _was_  Death) “And I need you to be honest with me, Cas. The other you, he said you’d built this wall in my mind, erased stuff – made me forget. And if that’s true then I want it back. I want my memory back, Cas.” The man looks right at him like he could actually see his soul, if he had one, and panic, like a beacon, flares up within him and Castiel flinches.

No.  _No_ , why would he tell Dean? Why would his other self be so stupid? No, Dean  _can’t_  –

* * *

The silence speaks.

* * *

“So it’s true then. It’s fucking  _true,”_  Dean says bleakly, his face paler, mouth set in a grim line. “You wiped my mind. And we – you –  _it’s true_.”

– no, Dean wasn’t meant to find out this way! Not ever! He was meant to escape before then, to find some way out. A safe way. Help the brothers save the world as they’re so set to do, maybe even find a way for them to kill Lucifer, anything to get out of the Final Battle. Then – then, there’d maybe not be a next step because then it’d be too late and there are no sanctuaries in the world. But Dean was never meant to  _know_.

“Hell, Cas! Don’t you  _dare_  walk away! Tell me, Cas.  _Tell me_  what the hell’s going on!”

“I, I can’t. It’s for the safety of –”  _you. the Nephilim. me._

Castiel can’t decide.

“Don’t give me that crap,” the hunter cuts him off sharply, his anger deadlier than any sword. “I  _know_ , okay? You told me: you panicked, wiped my mind, but it’s too late isn’t it? It is. You told me about the, the Nephilim. God, Cas,  _tell me_  it’s not fucking  _true_  –”

It’s no use anymore. There are no pillars to hide behind. His shoulders sags, wings falling down heavily. If he leaves now, there’ll be no moment to return.

At least he can take some comfort in that he sees ire but not _hate_  brimming Dean’s soul.

“It’s true. It’s true.”

And Dean shouts, angry with himself and the world and he curses Castiel’s name, and he’s so  _guilty_  too, guilt he shouldn’t have to ever feel. And there is no way for Castiel to heal him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Yes, Dean **finally** gets to know what's going on, and Cas gets to know that Dean was sent to 2014. There are issues needed to be worked out on both sides..._   
>  _Originally I wrote another version of this chapter, with another resolution of Jesse's story, where Sam and Dean sort of adopted the kid and took him back to Bobby's to care for him, and Jesse agreed to join them and fight monsters. However it marred the overall of the rest of this story and clashed with later plans I've got for the plot, so I decided to stick with the series' resolution of the episode - that is, Jesse (as far as we can tell) uses his powers to disappear to someplace else and can no longer be tracked, and he's never mentioned again. I think the problem is that Jesse was made too powerful - I mean, the kid exorcised a demon out of his mom, and can warp reality - and while that's kinda awesome, it poses other problems; if kept, Jesse might even have been able to kill Lucifer, circumventing the Winchesters' destiny and whatnot, and - that'd been that. I realized I just far too easily felt tempted to use Jesse as some kind of deus ex machina, and solve a lot of problems without the effort I need for other characters' development. So. I [had to] let him go._


	9. TAKE THREE [act iii] the hunter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Apologizes for the delay! I've been on the move._

# TAKE THREE  
[act iii.] 

**_the hunter_ **

* * *

They stand in the salvage yard, surrounded by broken things and Castiel thinks they both may be part of those; souls fragmented at the edges. Tainted by betrayal. They have both been lied to far too many times and he never wanted this to happen but, but this  _is_  his fault and he’ll accept Dean’s hate -  _even if it hurts to do so_  - because he was a coward and hid the truth. (What else was he meant to do? He’d been selfish. He thought he was  _protecting_  -)

“Anything else you’ve been fucking  **lying**  about?” Dean demands to know.

The question could also be: _What else have you stolen?_

The answer should be:  _Everything_.

Honesty is difficult but feels good in the end, he supposes, that’s what the humans says in all their books: the lies cost too much. After, like the sea settling after a storm, things will be good [again]. But reality is subjective. Right now it feels hollow and strange and not good at all to stop telling lies and reveal to Dean about the Nephilim and hiding and being scared of the dark. It was easier, lying. Safer. But not in the end.

“I don’t know, Dean.”

He can’t remember everything anymore. There are black patches crudely sown together. A voice telling him:  _Those weren’t your orders, Castiel._ A naked room, a chair with straps on it keeping him locked in.

The frown deepens. Dean stands farther away now. Doesn’t want to get close enough to touch. “What d’you mean, you don’t know?”

“... my memories – some of them have been altered. It’s,” he pauses. He should not tell Dean or any other human this. These are angel affairs and telling Dean will only complicate things and this is penance, he is meant to endure it, face it alone. “It’s re-education.” And he adds, knowing the hunter will ask: “You wouldn’t understand, Dean.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know.  _Try me_ ,” Dean growls. Upset. He’s upset. At what (it’s not just one thing) Castiel isn’t certain. At the world. Lucifer. His brother’s fate.

“I’ve told you before. My superiors questioned my sympathies. Rightly so.  _I’ve rebelled against Heaven_ , Dean – “ And suddenly such emotion wells up within him, not just waves crashing upon a shore but a  _tsunami_  – “I’ve disobeyed so many times. You know what happens to angels when we disobey? When we doubt and  _question_? Haven’t you ever wondered why Lucifer was cast out? Why Uriel died? Why I had to –”

* * *

He isn’t allowed to complete the sentence. He has screamed too loud.

* * *

She’s standing before him again, the angel he doesn’t know the name of. Smiling - like how Zachariah smiled, so pleased, so pleased with himself and his Heaven.

“Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you? You’re a very difficult angel to find,” she says, arms crossed. Her dark suit is perfectly pressed. There are odd metallic instruments strewn across the white table that he can’t identify, can’t name but still fear; cold panic trembles inside of him like he’s seen them before. There is no memory. Instead there is something angels shouldn’t have: instinct to flee.

“I’m just trying to do my job,” she goes on, picking up something, a silver cylinder that’s been fashioned much in the same way that angel blades are, with a sharp point that may be deadly. He tries to move. Away.  _Away_. But he can’t – “The job our Father gave me. He told me:  _Keep the angels safe._  And I  _am_  keeping us safe. So why do you have to keep making this so difficult? You shouldn’t have done this, Castiel. Kept running away.”

The cuffs are tight against his wrists. Skin already raw. ( _His_  skin. Jimmy is sleeping.)

“Who are you?” he whispers hoarsely.

“I’m not even going to bother telling you what you did wrong,” she continues, not listening, not looking at him. “Not again. It’s always the same thing. And when you ran away again – I gave you an order, Castiel. How can it be so difficult to follow?” She turns around, stepping closer, lays a palm on his hair and pulling back so that his forehead is exposed. The touch is the mocking mirage of a parental, comforting stroke to take away all worries. “Then when they finally caught sight of you again, _of course_  you were with the Winchesters and still not  _acting_. You should feel lucky, Castiel, that I found you first. Zachariah and Raphael would’ve had you killed at once. Short-sighted, that’s what they are. But I know you can have your uses. And so might the Abomination.”

She knows. Of course she knows. Word of the Nephilim has spread far now, every angel in Heaven (and maybe on Earth) knows. He has a price on his head. But then where is the knife? Why hasn’t she cut it out of him and left him to bleed out as penance?

He awaits the blow.

“What do you mean?” he asks quietly.

“Let’s make a little deal, you and I,” she says, sounding like a demon standing at a crossroad. “You make certain that Sam Winchester says yes and Dean Winchester accepts Michael to fight Lucifer, and I won’t rip the Abomination out of you  _right now_.”

* * *

There’s no choice. Again. All taken from him. It’s a choice he never wants to make but he made it once, he made it once and obeyed Zachariah and it was only a temporary solution. So is this. Once he’s made Dean and Sam say yes, what’s to stop the angels from killing him and his child?

There will no boundaries left.

Sobs caught in his human throat, Castiel says  _yes._

* * *

She doesn’t put him down on Earth right away. Instead she takes him to another room in another Heaven, something roughly constructed from someone’s dreams – they haven’t died yet, there is no human soul present. The room is vast and dimly lit, construction still ongoing. The walls are bleak. He feels tiny here, tiny and insignificant. The invisible chains on his wrists won’t let go of him.

She has him stand there in a corner and puts a blade in his hands and says: “Soon that door will open and Dean Winchester will step through. If he doesn’t say yes to Michael, kill him.”

(Because if she can break him enough to make Dean say yes, then Sam will be lost too, with ease. Because she knows his greatest weakness.)

* * *

The door opens a hundred times.

As long as there’s a chance for Sam living, Dean will accept. Any price. Any cost. Heaven or Hell. Sam is his  _brother_. No angel, despite all being siblings, can comprehend.

(Castiel never considers himself in that equation.)

* * *

Time is fluid. In Heaven, it can be bent and crushed and remain forever languid, and the angel who hasn’t told him her name keeps him imprisoned for so long and yet so short amount time and he cannot count the hours. He’s becoming too human for that.

There are no nights in Heaven. There is no time to sleep. Because, to humans, Heaven  _is_  sleep.

Angels don’t sleep.

* * *

The door closes a hundred times.

They’re all illusions and he knows, intellectually, that none of this is real and she’s just in his head and that Dean isn’t in Heaven. But a hundred bodies lie before him bloodied and torn open, all killed in some other way, throats slit or guts stabbed and spilling out and there’s no merciful way about it, there’s no such thing as a merciful death and there’s nothing beautiful about it.

The angel returns then and the smile, the smile, Castiel realizes, the smile – she’s controlling these puppets and she has read his mind, she has seen Dean through him and she  _knows_  he will not say yes. She takes gleeful pleasure in this, this penance and it was never meant to work. None of the mirages were meant to bend under his pleas. And when they had all shouted  _No!_  and lunged at him, the oh so human instinct to  _survive_ , to protect the child and himself and his vessel’s fragile beating heart, had taken over.

The knife in his hand is covered in guilt and blood that isn’t real.

* * *

It’s been seventy-four days on Earth and an eternity in Heaven when Sam and Dean are shot in a nondescript motel room somewhere in South Dakota.

Trapped in the room with lifeless dolls littered across the wide floor, Castiel staggers. And there are voices in Enochian announcing, as they always do when a soul is lifted to Heaven: 

_SAM WINCHESTER IS DEAD. DEAN WINCHESTER IS DEAD._

She smiles at him. The angels have been searching intently or the brothers as the sigils on their ribs keeps them hidden, but their souls are now left free and unprotected.

“Ah. I suspect Zachariah will swiftly be looking for their Heaven.”

Because they cannot stay dead. They cannot say yes if they’re dead.

“Do you understand what you have to do, Castiel?”

(He does.)

He still holds the blade. And he doesn’t even think. Angels never purely  _react_ , they always deliberate and think through tactics because they’re timeless and immortal and above instinct. They follow orders. Not now.

Suddenly he’s not frozen on the floor. He fights the chains, breaks them apart with raw fear, with anger, with  _emotion_  that rarely have felt so pure in their simplicity.

The knife sweeps through the air and then the angel cries out and it’s enough to kill her, though not all at once, and she sways and sinks to her knees. Confused at the sudden pain. She’s a bureaucrat in Intelligence, not a warrior; or, if she was a soldier, it was long ago, long enough for her Grace to have forgotten what it felt like. That is all that’s needed. A crack appears in the illusions: there is a doorway, and it is open, and he can stretch his wings to their full broken span.

Before she can recover, he’s thrown away the knife and taken flight.

* * *

In Heaven flying is easier than on Earth. Atoms are different here, shifting and crumbling with ease. He could have chosen to take on only his true form, travel as a streak of light, of energy so free that many laws could have been broken, but if he abandons his vessel now he might not ever get it back. Instead he crisscrosses the thousand million different skies in here, finds paths through the complex matrix that most humans never, even in the eternity of Afterlife, manage to figure out. He knows them well. This has been home for a long, long time (before he discovered the true meaning of the word).

The Winchester brothers are on the Road, but it may be seconds or days before they find their way to their true Heaven. Castiel thinks he knows them well enough to find them.

That’s something Zachariah hasn’t thought of, he thinks; to seek the boys’ true dreams, not make logical assumptions based on appearances. At least he hopes so. _Believes._

* * *

But they aren’t on the Road. It always appears differently, yet it always remains the same. Castiel doesn’t have anything beyond it waiting except the Garden, so it looks like a green path without flowers but underneath it he can trace a two-lane asphalt road on which Dean had travelled not long ago in the light of a full hollow moon. And he follows it, swiftly, glancing over his shoulder.

The alarm sounds not long after. The Choirs have broken the chords yet again and are screaming orders for all others to hear:  _The Traitor is fleeing - find it! - stop him! - shut the Gates!_

He must hurry.

* * *

The Winchesters’ Heaven is beautiful. A house they cannot remember in clearance, especially not Sam who was just an infant at the time. And Dean has the clearest memory of seeing the house burning and his mother never walking out again and their father shouting:  _Take Sam! Go! Go!_

But they haven’t gotten this far yet when he finds them. He finds them during one of the hundreds of little memories that may have been chosen for them to relive, to relish. But they don’t relish it because they still have work to do. Dean is standing in the hall, arguing with Sam, who’s not wearing a bloodied plaid shirt but white and black and a tie. Neither of them carry guns. Dean is in the middle of a sentence when Castiel abruptly appears, slowing down from the speed of light to something the men are able to decipher. He has to catch himself against a wall.

“… and never th–  _Cas!_  The hell, man?”

It’s been four Earth months since last they met, he manages to skim from Dean’s surface thoughts. Four months and not a word and suddenly they’re here in this place they don’t even understand what it is – is it a vision? a dream? something of a trickster’s doing?

“It’s not a dream,” Castiel says, has to focus on what’s important here, he hasn’t much time.

“Then what is it?” Dean demands to know.

“I’ve been telling you,” Sam murmurs at the same time, more accepting than his brothers who refuses to know, refuses to move on –

“Heaven.”

“We’re – we’re in  _Heaven_?”

“Yes.” No time to explain. “Has anyone seen you? I mean, Zachariah. He’s looking for you. Has he – he’ll appear as a light, probably, or in some other form to confuse you.”

“No,” Sam says, full or rapid attention. “Just us. This is one of my memories, I think.” Yes. The Road, still. And Zachariah must have found the trail now, or one of his underlings has. Spies are everywhere, nowhere is safe.

“Why’s the asshole lookin’ for us?” Dean asks.

“To return you to your bodies.” He looks around them again, past the mirages and dimensions humans cannot see. Beyond the matrix, for a moment, all is quiet. He has managed to delay the angels, confused them by setting up false trails and letting them cross each other wildly, his Grace a mere echo of its former glory. It takes a moment to focus on this moment, the brothers looking at him expectantly for answers. They haven’t comprehended the true danger yet. “Otherwise you cannot say yes.”

All about that little word.

“You’re still on the Road,” Castiel goes on, tries to focus, focus on the important thing here. “I have to leave you here but if you follow it, you’ll find your Heaven –”

Dean frowns. “Hang on, ‘our’ Heaven? There’s not just one big place?”

“Heaven isn’t just one place or idea. It’s much more complex than that. Most people have their own Heavens. Only soulmates share. There’s more to it than that, but I don’t have time to explain.” Urgency makes his tone grow rougher with each word, and he must remember not to swear in Enochian, to keep to a tongue the brothers understand. “You have to move. Zachariah will find you sooner or later.”

“What about you?” Dean asks. So sharply. The question is so  _real_  and concerned and Castiel thinks that if the man cared just a little less things would be so much easier.

Castiel just shakes his head, no time to explain; he must leave them, and hope they find their own way. His presence only put the two more at risk. Standing beside his brother, Sam shifts from foot to foot and suddenly the house begins to tremble. There’s a high-pitched noise the hunters can’t hear and a bright light sweeps across the windows. They cannot hear it but that is Zachariah’s true voice, an endless chasm cold and everlasting, and it is demanding retribution and damning Castiel’s name, calling out for the Traitor and the Winchester brothers both to show themselves. The closeness of the other angel’s Grace causes his own to shrivel.

There is no time for goodbyes or apologies. Dean doesn’t look away from him even as the ground starts falling down. In a second, Castiel has spread his wings again, propelled himself away from the Road toward someplace, any place that could be a sanctuary.

* * *

By chance he lands in the Garden. It’s visited by so few nowadays. Then, the Garden is always different, separate from the rest of Heaven, a mirage that appears to change with each breath even if the trees may be real. He didn’t expect to ever come here; few angels, especially common Seraphs (soldiers who have fallen so low) such as he, are rarely allowed entrance. But this time no guard has come to stop him and he lands by the foot of a flower bed. The roses are a little torn at the edges.

The Garden is unlike anything ever seen on Earth, yet it’s everything like it, because Castiel has always preferred Earth. The real thing. A world full of people and  _life_.

As he hears the voice behind him he tenses up. Afraid. Ready to flee again.

“Castiel,” Joshua says – oh, it has been  _so,_  so long since he saw the Gardener last. He was just a fledgling then, one among hundreds of others in his rank, no one in particular. Joshua is grand, a legend, someone far-away that he never even has spoken to. To be in his presence is both terrifying and relieving. It’s rumoured (Castiel doesn’t know if it’s true) that their Father still speaks to Joshua, that he’s the angel that has always been closest to Revelation, that he’s touched it.

“I wasn’t expecting company,” he says. “You’ve met the Winchesters, then?”

Exhale. “Yes.” Inhale. “What will –” ( _happen to them?)_  The question starts slipping out before he can stop it. Joshua calmly holds up his vessel’s hand and underneath, as a bright shadow, Castiel can see his true form towering tall, six pair of wings casting long shadows in the morning sun.

“I’m afraid I do not have all the answers. I’m just a Gardener,” Joshua says, and his smile is kind and much closer to something  _human_. It is also distant, impersonal, a delusion wrought from dreams; and Joshua may not even be aware of it, but Castiel tries to draw comfort from that simple tiny gesture. “But I know you’re not safe even here. Raphael has loudly announced that we are to kill the traitor on sight. I’m not a sword-bearer, but I cannot speak for any other angels.”

“Do  _you_  think I am one?” Castiel finds himself asking. “A traitor?” But no answer is forthcoming. And Castiel looks at the older angel, pleadingly, in a manner that angels do not look at one another and he asks, desperate for answers, for relief, for an end to come: “Do you speak with Him? Is He still alive? Do you  _know?”_

But Joshua repeats: “I’m just a Gardener.”

Earth is very far away. 

The angel steps forward and lays a hand on his arm and there’s a brief surge of strength. Just a little more borrowed time. “This is all I can do, Castiel. You should go. As for your Father – it’s been some time since last I heard Him. He’s hidden – and He isn’t inclined to step forth. Nothing of this, the Apocalypse, it’s not of His concern anymore. At the moment I believe the chosen Prophet knows more than I. I’m sorry, Castiel. There’s nothing more I can offer.”

The Seraph nods wordlessly. His Father, gone. As he had so long feared. Prophecies being fulfilled after all. But where to go next? where? _where_?

Joshua cannot give answers. He’s just a Gardener.


	10. TAKE FOUR [act i] echo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I'm sorry about the massive delay. I'm in a low dip in the curve of my social anxiety & depression right now and am struggling with a lot of things in life, and that's taken its toll on me and also my writing. I'm not going to discuss any of that here, it's not the right medium or place and hasn't got to do with this fic, but, this is why I haven't updated anything for a while and updates will be sporadic continually in the the future. Thanks for understanding._

# TAKE FOUR  
[act i.] 

_**echo** _

* * *

The reunion is a bittersweet relief. His brother doesn’t appear to bear any new scars, though there are a couple of bruises only hours old upon his wrists and of course,  _of course_  he’s met some demon trouble somewhere and this time Dean wasn’t there to protect his back.

(He can’t stop thinking about Sam in a white suit with a smile gleaming on his lips and Sam saying:  _See you in five years, Dean._ Sam breaking necks. It’s a constant buzz at the back of his mind; no matter how much he scratches at it, it won’t go away, won’t shut up.)

“… I was wrong.”

Sam looks back up at him. “What made you change your mind?”

He could answer with something tiny like:  _You’re still my brother, Sam, Lucifer’s prom suit or not._  He could say: _I saw you die, Sammy, I saw you die again and it wasn’t a nightmare, a dream; it’s going to be real this time._ Or maybe:  _There’s a future where everyone’s dead, the Earth burning and I can’t bear seeing all that shit happening all over again_  –

Biting back all other words, he chooses: “Long story.”

* * *

“Sam, we gotta find Cas.” It’s been on repeat in his mind for days, since he fell back in time and managed to stand up again. So many questions need answering.

“Yeah, I get that – you sound really agitated about it.” No, he doesn’t, he really doesn’t get it. The reality of it. But Dean doesn’t correct him. “But the guy seemed fine last we saw him. He should be OK, Dean. I mean, he’s an angel.”

The older brother shakes his head vehemently. Right now the angel has got to be anything  _but_.

(They’re all being hunted now, by heaven and hell, and what’s earth got to offer but meagre shelters through dark nights?)

He’d have tried a summoning spell, maybe, but something just feels wrong, too, about forcing Cas out like that. Even if he’s angry with the guy. If the angel’s hiding, wherever, from other angels, last thing he needs is someone tugging him away from that hiding place.

So, hating the decision but hoping so badly he’s making the right one, he waits.

* * *

A hunt. A normal hunt. Would be good, yeah. Something – simple, straightforward. A quaint monster on the loose. But there are no normal hunts.

Eventually Bobby finds them one, something to do, somewhere to do. To get back together. (He hasn’t seen his brother for a hundred hours.) It’s just like any other town, someplace unparticular, with nice places to hang out in the corner of the streets. Outside the windows people are moving.

Haunted, it seems like, at first, and that they know how to deal with. Hauntingly simple. But it isn’t –  _of course_  – it’s some forest god named Leshii. Some small little god nobody prays to anymore; not like that douchebag up above, with his millions of followers, who doesn’t seem to care that his world soon is gonna be in tatters.

The iron axe feels good in Dean’s hands as he swings it down.

* * *

“Hey, Sammy. Listen, I was thinking about what you said yesterday. About me keeping too tight of a leash on you. And maybe you’re right. I mean, look, I’m not exactly Mister Innocent in this whole mess either, you know. I  _did_  break the first seal.”

“You didn’t know.”

“Yeah, well, neither did you. I’m not saying demon blood was a great way to go, but, you did kill Lilith.”

Sam stares at him helplessly. “And start the apocalypse.”

“Which neither of us saw coming. I mean, who’d have ever thought killing Lilith would’ve been a  _bad_  thing?” He sighs. Squares his shoulders. “Point is, I was so worried about watching your every move that I didn’t see what it was actually doing to you. For that I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” It’s heartfelt.

“So, where do we go from here?”

His brother leans against the Impala’s trunk, determined to go on even if he’s too tired of all of this shit. The dream of a normal life isn’t even a dream. “The way I see it, we got one shot at surviving this. Maybe I am on deck for the devil, maybe same with you and Michael, maybe there’s no changing that. But, we can stop wringing our hands over it. We gotta just grab onto whatever’s in front of us, kick its ass, and go down fighting.”

Dean can get on board with that.

* * *

It’s a Thursday when Cas finds them. It’s a case in Nebraska that’s quite weird and they’ve been here for merely a day and can’t come up with any plausible explanation. Maybe some poltergeist ghost. But it isn’t, Cas tells them. The angel looks weary and his belly is oddly flat, Dean thinks, if he really is – if what his future self said – if it’s  _true_  -

The boy is the Antichrist. A creature. A demon’s son.

(And Dean thinks about that future and what the broken, human Cas said between tears, what he said about their daughter who was a hybrid, just like this little boy who doesn’t even know how powerful he is.)

* * *

The boy wraps his arms around himself. He sounds petrified and angry and disbelieving. “I’m… I’m half-demon?”

Sam kneels in front of him, getting into his eye level. “You’re half-human too and that’s the important thing. You can do the right thing. You’ve got choices, Jesse. But if you make the wrong ones, it’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.

“Why are you telling me this?!”

“Because I have to believe someone can make the right choice, even if I couldn’t.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. Tries to smile. Because, hey, this might actually be the best thing they’ve run into in a long, long while. A chance to rid the world of Lucifer and the Apocalypse and set things  _right_. “You’d be handy in a fight, kid.”

“What if I don’t want to fight?”

* * *

It’s a Thursday. The boy goes up to his room. He doesn’t walk back down.

The ride back to Bobby’s is very quiet.

* * *

Eventually he cannot take the silence anymore. He has just too much to think about and no way to let it all out.

“We destroyed that kid’s life by telling him the truth.”

Sam glances at him. Shoulders tense. Something like pity in his eyes. He looks tired and too old. “We didn’t have a choice, Dean.”

“Yeah.” Dean stares at the never-ending road. “You know, I’m starting to get why parents lie to their kids. You want them to believe that the worst thing out there is mixing Pop Rocks and Coke – to protect them from the real evil. You want them going to bed feeling safe. If that means lying to them, so be it. The more I think about it, the more I wish Dad had lied to us.”

* * *

But he never wanted  _Cas_  to lie to him.


	11. TAKE FOUR [act iii] the ark

# TAKE FOUR  
[act iii.]

**_the ark_ **

* * *

Dean doesn’t want to react like he did in that terrifying future. He  _tries_  not to. But, god, Cas lied and lied and he hid for so long and he’s tried pretending everything’s fine, that he (that  _all of them_ ) aren’t going to face a violent end. Cas, who he’s still trusted, this angel who has turned from Heaven to help them, to stop the Apocalypse and the angels and warn them of the schemes; Cas, this stranger, who Dean doesn’t know but refuses to let go of, Cas has  _lied to him_. Forced away his memories, locked them away, a brief (wrong? right? Dean doesn’t know) night spent together in bliss and tears and lust - a  _child_  - oh, fucking god, a child, not just a fruitless one-night-stand but the angel in front of him is  _carrying a **child**_  -

He wants to hit something. Kill something. Tear something apart.

But there’s nothing and Cas doesn’t fly off at once, just lingers, like the guy actually wants to stay here on Earth with him and Sam after all. Like they matter more (and maybe they do).

“Anything  _else_  you’ve been lying about?”

_Tell me. (oh please no, i don’t want to know, i don’t want to know) tell me (fucking damn it) **tell me**  (is everything built on lies?) -_

Cas’ shoulders slump. “... I don’t know, Dean.”

The hell kind of answer is that? “What d’you mean you ‘don’t know’?”

A pause, a breath; Dean doesn’t like it.

“... My memories – some of them have been altered. It’s, it’s re-education.” And he sounds so certain of the fact as he says: “You wouldn’t understand, Dean.”

But Dean has begun to get the idea, now. Illinois. What that broken future human said:  _There was re-education, an angel named Naomi. There was the burning of souls, one after the other, the reprogramming of angels like machines, and there was the devil smiling with his brother’s face. There was a broken human reaching out for his touch like it would cure the whole world -_

Dean can’t think of all that now. If he does, he might break. ”Oh, I wouldn’t know.  **Try me.** ”

Then Cas sounds so much  _more_  than usual, his voice low and hoarse and pained, it’s not that monotone deadpan. Angry and afraid. He sounds _alive_ (not like an angel at all, but human, like a proper human, without a broken core even if the shell is full of scratches). 

“I’ve told you before - my superiors questioned my sympathies. Rightly so. I’ve rebelled against Heaven, Dean – I’ve disobeyed so many times. You know what happens to angels when we disobey? When we doubt and question? Haven’t you ever wondered why Lucifer was cast out? Why Uriel died?  _Why_  I had to –”

Before the next word comes, without noise or warning or a sudden rush of light, Cas disappears. There’s no flutter of wings.

Just –  _nothing_.

“…Cas!” Dean shouts, trying to catch the spot where the angel stood but it’s too late. He’s not turned himself invisible this time, hasn’t flown off. This, this was different.

* * *

He tries praying, the usual thing, demanding the angel to get his feathery ass back on Earth.

Nothing occurs.

* * *

Indoors Sam and Bobby haven’t noticed this discussion at all, or, rather, they’ve pretended not to notice and not interfered or eavesdropped. When Dean tells them Cas is gone, again, Sam frowns a little; one of his _stuff’s-gone-wrong-again-are-we-very-fucked-or-just-fucked-_ expressions. From behind his over-filled desk Bobby doesn’t seem overly worried or bothered and why should he be? Cas is an angel. An angel who couldn’t heal Bobby’s legs.

“What do you mean, disappeared?” Sam asks, because he’s bright like that, catching onto the important details. “He flew off?”

“I mean, disappeared into thin air. I know he does that all the time but it wasn’t zapping, there wasn’t that – fluttering noise. Like wings, yeah? Now it was more like someone just snatched the guy.”

And then, then he suddenly thinks of that brittle building, when he and Sam hadn’t yet reunited, when Cas came to him asking for help to trap an archangel. The fucking  _trickster_  appearing – Gabriel – then, right after that, for a brief moment Cas had been gone too. Noiselessly, without warning.

Is it the same thing as then? Did someone actually take him away? Cas has been marked a traitor, after all. And who the hell knows what the actual limits of angel powers are. Maybe an archangel, like that Raphael guy, could’ve –

 _Oh hell,_  Dean thinks,  _we’re so fucking_   _screwed. (Again.)_

* * *

He has to start looking for an angel again. And he has no idea where to begin, like last time. It was just luck, he supposes, that they happened to find Jesse Turner at the same time as Cas found him, since the angel can’t track them. Though he knows Bobby’s place is safe – Cas knows that, right? He knows it’s okay for him to appear, doesn’t he?

In the evening, while Sam’s showering and Bobby downstairs preparing dinner for the three of them – a rare occurrence (but no job has appeared for a few hours for them and they can use the respite) – Dean glances upward. Where he guesses Cas is.

“Hey, Cas, listen. What I said. It was stupid. ‘Course I don’t fuckin’ know about re-education or whatever it means. And if that got your feathers in a twist and you flew off – just, you can know I’m not angry or whatever. Come down here, man.”

And quieter he adds, just so that Sam or nobody can overhear ever because it’s too weird and personal and he’s not even started  _thinking_  about how the hell to breach the subject to his brother and Bobby: “I hope you’re all right. With the, the – baby.” He can’t call it a creature –  _nephilim_  – whatever the term technically is. Because Cas may be an angel and it’s a hybrid and it’s unnatural but, it’s  _his_  child and he’s trying to – “I’m not angry about that. Upset maybe, confused, hell yeah. I mean. A baby. With you. I thought I’d just drank too much that night to remember –”

Cas never did remove the wall.

Dean isn’t sure that even if he knows now, what the results were, he wants to actually  _remember_  that night. At that point he’d been just been bruised and abused by Alistair and Uriel had recently died so Cas might’ve been upset (or unsettled or however angels reacted without true emotion) about that. It was a drunken mistake and Cas had tried to offer comfort and Dean is terrified now, terrified that he forced this on Cas. What if Cas lied about that too? Guy wasn’t anywhere near a human at that point. Didn’t know crap about emotion or how humans actually deal with things, didn’t know there’s a difference between love and sex and –

(In that horrible future, Cas had curled up on himself and tried to reach out and grasp Dean’s wrists. In that horrible future, Cas had tried to make them touch and said: _It’s not the first time_.)

“Damn it, Cas, just give me some sign that you’re okay.”

* * *

(Lucifer is still out there and has to be dealt with. He doesn’t care for trivial things like missing angels when there’s an apocalypse to arrange, to stage; to sell all the tickets with beautiful PR:  _Oh don’t you worry, it’ll all be over soon.)_

* * *

“So get this,” Sam says in the morning, over breakfast, once they’re all a little more sober; the younger brother is pouring over his laptop and there’s a couple of newspapers thrown open on the table (next to a knife and a spare clip of ammo), toast forgotten. Dean is on his second cup of coffee. “A man in Brandon, South Dakota, was just found dead. Wife found him in the bathroom. Cause of death: old age.”

“Oh, news flash,” Dean mutters, sending his brother a glare. There’s a certain level of stupid they shouldn’t have to touch. “People age and, y’know, _die_.”

(People do.  _Should_  do. The natural way of things, when God is kind. Hunters never do; they always die young.)

But Sam isn’t finished yet. “Thing is, Xavier was just twenty-five years old.”

Definitely a case, then.

* * *

His bones, thin and so damningly fragile, creak a little as he shifts and he hates this, hates feeling so old –  _being_  so old. But Bobby’s just thrown away his life like it’s  _nothing_ , like he’s worthless without his legs and, sure, Dean knows nothing about being paralyzed but he’d thought Bobby wasn’t actually  _that_  fucking desperate as to try winning a game against a witch.

Then Bobby had gotten even more upset when Dean had returned with gnarled hands and an apologetic grin –  _I tried getting your years back, Bobby._

* * *

At an hour he finds when his back aches and nobody’s around, he clasps his hands in his lap and tries making himself heard again.

“...Hey, Cas. Hope you hear this. ... Stuff isn’t going too well. I’m – well, I hope you can’t actually  _see_  me right now ‘cause it’s too fuckin’ embarrassing. Huh, never thought I’d  _actually_  die of old age, ‘cause what hunter ever does? ...” (A false short laugh, dry in his throat.) “Listen, if you could just wing down here … Bobby’s lost twenty-five years in a poker-game and Sam thinks he can win back both of our years and, just, it’s a mess. We’d really need you here to help us out. I’m real worried about you, man. You okay? With the, the – okay, I gotta learn to say this aloud. The baby. I ... I hope you’re both okay. ... Just, you can come back, here, to – to us.”

 _(to me,_  something in his dark shrivelled up heart whispers, his heart so haunted and broken and full of pathetic memories and a beat up childhood where nothing’s normal:  _you can come back to **me** , Cas._)

Scary how easy it is to start thinking about all the wrong stuff when you shouldn’t. When there isn’t  _time_  for crap like that.

* * *

The night is silent. There is no comfort in the night, in the quiet whirring of the fan in ceiling and flickering streetlamps outside the window or the standard issue Bible hidden in the drawer (there always is one in the motels, the hotel rooms, unopened and words disobeyed). Dean lies on his side, armed with knife and gun and nothing to help him. Joints creaking, protesting. His soul, he thinks, if souls were tangible and touchable, then his has begun to ache, a slow deep ache that nothing cures, not even time - especially not time.

All the cases, they’re just shortcuts they walk trying to find the main road, the main road is keeping them lost and they’re side-tracked. The goal is Lucifer and the world’s ending and that’s what Bobby knows, that’s what Sammy knows - what they believe - oh, they’ll get there and save the world and kill the Devil -

Dean lies on the bed praying to a fallen angel, and doesn’t believe.

* * *

_There is a part of him, a huge part of him that’s very slowly shrinking (but quickly enough?) that still will not believe, that’s so angry and hurt for being lied to, being betrayed, being used (an angel cannot take a vessel without consent but what the hell was Cas thinking that night? what was he thinking? and then to take the memory right from Dean’s brain, tug it all out and pretend **nothing happened**  -_

_(now there’s a child growing, forbidden like the fruit in Eden)_

_And how’s he meant to forgive something he never chose to forget? What if there was pain involved, what if it was punishment to either of them, what if there was blood and Cas erased it from the sheets with the wave of a hand just like the memory? did either of them ever say_  yes?

 _So many nights, too many nights, has Dean never bothered closing his eyes because the pain, this chasm, this void is too huge and easily filled with nightmares. Cas is out there, somewhere, in Heaven or on Earth, roaming without a shadow and carrying a forbidden child,_  theirs, _something Dean never asked for, never considered, never thought possible -_  theirs.

_How many prayers will it take for Cas to hear? to listen?_

_What if he can’t ever hear them again?_

* * *

(And he tries again, sending another not-really-a-prayer to the Heaven above full of lies, and Dean just want an answer: brief, a word, just a signal from afar - a broken text; ‘ _I’m alive_ ’ would suffice at this point. Too many fucking people aren’t alive.)

* * *

Dean isn’t around to see Patrick lose the game, too busy crouching on a cheap motel bed moaning about his poor old back and his old bones and aching, brittle,  _mortal_  body, rapidly fading away. Bobby has tuned him out at some point. And Sam comes back to the motel looking pleased and not quite smug and Bobby is staring and suddenly Dean is well and young again.

“Never doing that again,” he says, pulling himself up. “How the hell did you –”

“I won,” Sam says simply, and for the moment Dean is too relieved about having his body back the way it should be (but still scarred and aching to its depths) to actually be angry with him.

Still trapped in his wheelchair, but with at least some more colour to his skin, Bobby sighs a quiet  _idjits_.

It’s an echo of status quo.

* * *

Days turn into a week, into two weeks, and Sam has asked once or twice, briefly, if he wonders where Cas is, why he flew off – if that’s what he did – if he’s heard anything from the angel. Sam seeks messages and signs, help against the world’s ending and the Devil, unaware of the truths and the lies and how there are pawns to the game that are hidden, unrevealed. That there’s more than one board. And Dean had reacted to the questions with sudden heated anger and worry and (difficult to acknowledge, to put to words)  _fear._

Fear: fear that, shit, Cas could be fucking  _dead_  right now and they’d never know. Since then Sam hasn’t asked anything more and his brother keeps glancing at him from time to time – but has there  _ever_  been a time of real, unaltered truth between them? Whenever has the other not snuck off to make some deal of his own, all to protect his brother, his family?

So Dean doesn’t (can’t) offer any answers. He has no idea how to tell Sam, or Bobby, or anybody:  _Cas and I had a thing once and now he’s going to have a child, our child, and I’m fucking scared someone’s taken him away and I’ve no idea where the hell to start looking and I want to find him, I want the answers, I want to know they’re safe. I want them safe._

* * *

Another six days pass and they have fallen into a rhythm, lingering at Bobby’s, at motels, chasing various leads, there’s a simple salt-and-burn up north. Then Dean is shaken awake at seven in the morning.

“Okay, we gotta drive  _now_ ,” Sam says, a worried, frantic edge to his tone can only means trouble (whenever isn’t there?).

The message came from Chuck – something about grave danger and emergencies and he’s a Prophet but, most importantly, a somehow-almost-friend, a guy they can trust. So Dean doesn’t hesitate to turn the key in the ignition.

(Maybe the Prophet knows something about Cas. Maybe he knows  _something -)_

* * *

Of course it turns out it was fucking  _fluke_  caused by Chuck’s hyper girlfriend who won’t stop staring at his brother and touching Sam’s pecs like that’s a sane thing to do. And has he mentioned the fifteen other identical Impalas parked up the drive? Because that’s more than just creepy.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Chuck says for the thousandth time. “I had no idea Becky would do that.”

“Oh really,” Dean says dryly.

“Honest!”

“And what’s all this?” He gestures at the large house, full of people dressed like him and his brother and carrying fake guns and knives that cannot kill demons.

“Look, I’m a  _writer._  It’s what I’ve got! The world’s ending so I’m trying to live like it’s no tomorrow. I’ve got to get my money somehow. Plus, this was kinda Becky’s idea...I couldn’t  _refuse_  her -”

If the guy hadn’t been so helpful in the past and just has the extreme misfortune to be a Prophet and not have a chance at a normal life, Dean would’ve punched him square in the face (hard and not hesitating). He nearly does anyway.

* * *

(Chuck tells him - after it’s over and the ghosts killed and two fans shocked into stillness because it’s all  _real_  - that he hasn’t heard anything from Cas for a while. That he hasn’t been told anything through visions. But he saw Cas disappear; can’t tell how or by whom, but the Prophet guesses angels are behind it and Dean’s blood goes cold. Angels. Of fucking course. Of all beings in the universe, it has to be the biggest dicks.

Chuck doesn’t tell him he has already seen it all end. That he doesn’t know how to stop it.)

* * *

It’s been four weeks without sign of any angels when Bobby gives them a call. They’re sitting in a motel room checking their supplies of rock salt after a simple salt-and-burn. They could use something else like this, straightforward, not too many hours spent digging for answers. Just – a clear go. But of course such a thing is terribly rare.

Without ado Bobby says: “I’ve found Lucifer for you. Better get your asses movin’, boys.”

* * *

There’s a demon named Crowley who has the Colt, the one weapon that might actually kill the Devil once and for all. But Bobby isn’t the one to tell them this. No, sitting on the steps to Bobby’s place is a hauntingly familiar man who grins hugely at them, waving a hand as they approach up the driveway.

“Hiya, boys! You missed me?”


	12. TAKE FOUR [act ii] death in the silent lane

# TAKE FOUR  
[act ii.]

**_death in the silent lane_ **

* * *

But before that they’re found in a motel room in South Dakota by Walt and Roy who point their own guns at them and then Sam is dead, Dean screaming his name in vain and then he can’t hear the guns go off a second time –

* * *

He finds Sam on a road to nowhere. There’s a house at the edge of it and a sky that never moves and woods that never end. The fireworks have died out noiselessly; the radio, briefly crackling and hissing in the dark. The echo of Cas’ voice: _Follow the road_. (Dean hadn’t been able to see him. Ask questions. Ask what he meant. The voice had died away and Dean had turned the key in the ignition, the painting of a moon wheeling fast overhead, and he’d followed a road that wasn’t real.)

Sam’s dressed up all fancy and having dinner with a family that isn’t real. And if this is a dream, it’s one of the most weird this far that Dean has had. Well, almost, at least.

Then Cas appears like a shadow in a game and says:  _This isn’t a dream._

“We’re – we’re in  _Heaven?”_

“I told you,” Sam murmurs at his shoulder. But Dean doesn’t look at him. He can’t stop staring at Cas. He knows what to look for now and the angel looks so torn at, there’s a scrape on his cheek and blood in trails on his wrists and a knife in his hand that’s dripping red. His eyes are wide and more expressive than Dean has seen then since that future that he’s trying to stop. Sam who doesn’t know doesn’t focus on Cas’ rounded belly. It’s not important right now.

But Dean sees it and he grows scared now, scared at seeing it even more real. Last time he saw Cas it was just a barely noticeable bump that the angel kept concealed somehow, with some kind of illusion that made him never look that way. Now Dean can’t stop  _staring._

Before they can get anything out of him than  _Stay out of the light!_ , Cas is off again with the flutter of feathers. Sharp and sudden. Dean can’t cry after him, there’s no point; no road to follow.

The light sweeps over the house, walls trembling. The family at the table doesn’t react - like all’s peaceful and all right, like they’re not real -  _how are they supposed to tell what’s real anymore?_

* * *

“Did you really think I wouldn’t find you?” Zachariah asks. The angel stands before them angry and pleased and impatient. “This is  _Heaven,_  boys. There is nowhere to run.”

Their mother who isn’t real smiles at them with yellow eyes.

* * *

They wake up covered in blood. Dean is shivering, but not from cold. Slowly, he stands up, watching his brother do the same. His body doesn’t even ache, but there are bullet holes in his shirt. There are no traces of lead anywhere else.

As they shower and dress again and check out of the motel as living men, they don’t speak with one another. No one asks any questions. They don’t call Bobby. They have no news - nothing that could help them fight this hopelessly closer war against both Heaven and Hell - nothing to aid them in the fight. They’ll give him the notes, later. Once they’ve had a moment to breathe.

(There’s been no more sign of Cas, no whisper. Dean tries praying, briefly, when Sam isn’t nearby to overhear. Just nonsense, really. Just nonsense.

Nobody’s answering.)

* * *

Ten days later Bobby calls them with news. There could be a way to kill Lucifer. Also, the old hunter sounds rather annoyed and Dean and Sam don’t really understand what about until they get there.

There’s an angel sitting on the doorstep.

* * *

“The trickster. Is an archangel. Named Gabriel,” Sam says flatly.

Oh, yeah. Dean kind of forgot to mention that earlier. His brother fixes him with a fierce stare and bitchface number forty-two: “Anything  _else_ going on I should know about, Dean?”

He wishes he could honestly say:  _No. Nothing._ (So many fucking  _lies._ )

* * *

“Yeah, sorry ‘bout that. But we talked it out didn’t we?” Gabriel says to Sam, who’s silently  _fuming._  ”And look at where we are: you still stickin’ together refusing to let the other die. Talk about codepedency. But, that’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why? What happened, anyway, with that other archangel - Raphael? You guys disappeared. I figured you finished each other off,” Dean says. In the background Bobby makes a noise like:  _What the hell’s my life come to, I’m not some fuckin’ landlord; get the angels outta my study._

“We’re kinda hard to finish off,” the archangel says flippantly, producing a strawberry lollipop from thin air. Now, as he moves, he look kind of - ragged. Tired. The edges hazy, as if his Grace is slowly threatening to slip out of the body he’s in. Not like he’s been dancing on roses, anyway. “It was long and bothersome and just the reason I skipped out. Then you and Cassie had to come along and drag me back. Now - well, too late. Anyway. I’m here about the Colt, yeah - I heard about your little escapade to kill the Devil. ‘Cause, really, I don’t want any more of my brothers to die but, I guess... Well, Cassie made me change a bit. But not just about the Colt. I saw Cas the other day.”

The question is out of Dean’s mouth before he’s managed to think it. ”Is he okay?”

“Depends on definition, I suppose. Not really. You guys dyin’ stole Raphael’s attention so our little pissing match was brought to an abrupt end - and wasn’t that a relief because I just couldn’t come up with any more sets for  _that_  movie - anyway, he ran off, and I ran off, and I was going to seek you out. Only, with the brands on your ribs - clever move - I couldn’t find you, same problem that Raphael and that Zachariah had. Cassie was much easier to track.”

“And?  _So?”_

The impatience is a fire threatening to consume him. A constant burn: he just wants an answer, a whisper, _anything_  from Cas just to _know_.

“So I found him in the Garden. Yeah, Heaven’s Garden,” Gabriel clarifies at Sam’s intense curiousity. “Had a little chat with Joshua the gardener. Apparently Cas was trying to get out but he’s – well,” and here Gabriel’s voice softens, he lowers his gaze a little and it’s so strange, this look of worried affection. “He can’t fly anymore. Can’t do much of anything. I managed to get him out but since two dozen other angels were trying to kill us both, well, I was kinda too busy to make sure he actually landed someplace safe. He’s on Earth, but where exactly is your guess as clearly as mine. I reused that trick and branded his ribs. It’ll work now.”

Dean frowns. “What d’you mean,  _now?_  It wouldn’t before?”

“Well, he’s basically human now. Graceless.”

Basically human. A knot forms in Dean’s throat. Basically human. Like in that future where he fell and never got up again.

Finally Sam gets a chance to speak up. “We met him in Heaven. That was days, weeks ago now.” The question, unvoiced yet understood, is:  _Where is he and why isn’t he here to help us?_  Because Cas had done that before he’d disappeared, and Sam doesn’t know and Dean can’t tell him - it’s all too fucking complicated.

(He doesn’t have the details. They haven’t been handed out. And if Gabriel knows them, he doesn’t mention it.)

“Time, time, time. It’s all subjective, Sammy,” Gabriel says, waving a hand. “Fluid. Nothing’s a straight line. It’s different in Heaven, of course - no sun to measure it - he may have been there longer than you guys, well, I’m pretty sure he  _was._  Then I kinda tried putting him back on Earth at an appropriate moment so  _technically_  he may be a bit in the future. From your narrow point of view. But, as mentioned, I was under attack, so he may be a little off, now. Damned lucky I got out at all to tell you guys any of this. They’re all very pissed now.”

He makes a humming noise, reaching for something in a secondary dimension or whatever the archangel is able to do, and pulls a wrapped candy bar out. He offers it to Sam. “How about a truce?”

* * *

The Colt is with a demon named Crowley. Apparently more than just any demon - works on crossroads. King of them - since Lilith died, probably. Also a sassy, sarcastic asshole. Dean wants to stab him dead, but the guy’s a slippery bastard.

And Gabriel says, now devouring some other sugary delight that Dean wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole because it was  _summoned out of thin air_ , that it’s their best shot. “Though,” he adds, “Lucifer  _might_  be one of the five things in existence that the gun can’t kill. I mean, it’s not like it’s been tested on an angel before. And - no! I’m  _not_  volunteering, trucker-cap.” The archangel shoots Bobby a sour look.

Right, mind-reading. Since Cas at least had the decency to stop doing that, Dean had stopped taking the possibility into consideration. He tries ignoring the shiver wrecking his spine.

“So, right. How do we do this?” He turns to his brother. He doesn’t trust Gabriel enough to let the archangel help them figure out a plan for this.

* * *

Then Gabriel insists on going with them after all, only to get lost on them after spotting a bunch of Reapers and they never get to know the details until afterwards, how the angel came face to face with Lucifer and got trapped in a circle of holy oil and not even an archangel can break free from that.

He’s not there in time to stop the explosion. He doesn’t get to hear the Hellhounds.

* * *

_Ellen._

_Jo._

* * *

_(The funeral afterward in the salvage yard is cold and empty and there are no coffins, no bodies to bury._

_They put wooden crosses in the dirt, names etched on them; and Dean can’t bring himself to say them aloud and there’s no time to cry or mourn. They died heroically, Bobby murmurs but there are no justifications, nothing to make the image prettier. It’ll all erode away soon by time and be forgotten and rot away, and who will be left behind to care?_

_Gabriel says that they’re in Heaven now, like Ash, like Pamela._

_Like Mary and John._

_All of them are in fucking Heaven now.)_

* * *

Dean comes to with a groan and Sam’s next to him, crawling to his side in the bushes while the ground trembles, a hundred men - demons - lying dead all around them. Lucifer is standing with his hands raised up in expectation and a smile on his sick face. There’s a flash of black and white.

Then there’s a whispered: “Shh!”, and an archangel lays his hand on their foreheads, flying them all away.

* * *

And when they’ve gone from the site and the ritual has finished, a terrible shape rises up, not yet having taken the form of a human or some other thing that the mortal eye can actually perceive. But the fallen angel can make out its broken shadow. The scythe has yet to be found.

The devil greets it with a smile.

“Oh, hello, Death.”

* * *

Cas could be trapped in the future, Gabriel said. Just a little bit, but still. What the hell does even an ‘opportune moment’ mean? Especially to a trickster angel like Gabriel. It could mean nothing at all. It could be another lie trying to soothe him.

(It’s not what Dean needs.)

And though he’s certain now that Cas cannot hear - basically human, now, deaf and blind and staggering through the world at a slow pace just like the rest of them - Dean prays before going to sleep, prays that Cas isn’t stuck in 2014 and that he’s okay and that the baby -  _their_  baby - is still alive.

As he sleeps he doesn’t dream.

* * *

In a city full of hunger nothing can satiate, held fast by demons kneeling before yet another damned horseman, Dean finds Famine turning to him with a strange expression. The man looks brittle and pale, all gnarled hands with no strength but he devours demons and tainted souls  _whole_  and Gabriel, the stupid ass, has run off someplace and left them in this town to sort this out on their own.

(Maybe he was gonna look for some other way to gank Lucifer. Or he’s looking for Cas. Or he’s fighting a civil war, because apparently that’s what’s occurring in Heaven right now. Dean doesn’t care about the last option to be honest because Earth is in enough of a mess and he can’t give his mind or heart to another conflict.)

“You stand here before me, and yet you don’t seem to crave ...  _anything.”_ The horseman sounds at loss. This is an impossible equation.

“Well,” Dean retorts, refusing to bend down, refusing to fall, “maybe I’m just well-fed.”

“Oh, I don’t think you are. All living things crave  _something._  But not you. I think perhaps on the inside you’re already dead.”

Then, before Famine can tug his soul out of his spine or from wherever it’s located, Sam shouts _Let him go!_ , red streaks around his mouth, a crazy hungry look in his eyes and then the demons are falling, a dozen of them exorcised all at once. Dean falls to the floor gasping for air and wants to cry for his brother but he can’t. It’s too late.

* * *

(He hasn’t felt truly alive in a long, long time. Maybe he did in that motel bed with Cas eight months ago. He doesn’t know. He can’t remember.)

* * *

Two horsemen down. Two to go.

As Gabriel looks at the rings they’ve gathered from them, picking one up curiously, he suddenly says: “Oh, but this is  _it.”_

“This is what?” Sam demands to know.

“The other set of lock and key. Did you really think ol’ Dad would leave just one way in and out of the Cage, that there’d be no back-up plan? I mean, honestly, boys. This is your job.”

“Well, the Apocalypse seems like a certain one-way ticket,” Dean says tiredly. Taking another swing of his beer. It’s not cold enough. “Your frat brothers really seem to think so.”

“That’s what they want us to  _believe,”_  Gabriel says, smiling wryly, offering nothing more on the subject. It’s not quite sore but something to thread softly upon, Dean gets that. Gabriel may act like the most annoying trickster but he’s still an archangel and quite certain that God’s real and well and just not caring about the world anymore. “Now, let’s find ... Pestilence. Let’s take Death last. That one’s gonna be a real pain in the ass.”

“Oh, and Pestilence isn’t?”

“I never said that. But, honestly Dean-o, have you ever thought about how one would even  _kill_  Death? It’s like trying to breathe life into Daddy-o.”

This is all getting too fucking philosophical and difficult. Life was easier before, when they would just gank the monsters in search for their dad, when angels hadn’t yet decided to get tangled up in their lives and the devil still was locked away.

But Dean squares his shoulders. They’ve gotta do this. Stop Lucifer. Never let Sam say yes. Bring peace to the world once more (well, relative peace, at least). “Okay. Let’s go get that sonofabitch.” 

 


	13. TAKE FIVE [act i] the gardener

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _2017-11-03: Looked at the draft dates and realized I began writing this chapter in September 2014, but probably earlier than that. Wow, I didn't know I'd ever return to this fic, to be honest. So much has happened since I started it and I like to think I've grown as a writer, as well as a person. At the same time as finalizing this chapter, I've gone through all previous chapters and updated them. While this is no longer one of my prioritized stories, and I haven't even watched the latest few Supernatural seasons, it'd be wonderful to just finish this fic once and for all - that's what I'm aiming for. I have too many works in progress lying around as it is. I don't know anyone's reading this fic anymore but if you are, please enjoy._

# TAKE FIVE  
[act i.] 

_**the gardener** _

* * *

The Garden is being barricaded by a whole garrison.

This is sacred ground and their Father rules over this realm – or Joshua does now that God is gone. Joshua, at least, does not wish him any harm. It’ll take them some effort to take over this tiny sanctuary, but no shields are invincible and no spell exists without one to counteract it. He can’t stay here indefinitely. Sooner rather than later the others will break through the walls and enter the Garden and it will burn, and they will cut the Nephilim out of him and kill it. They have their orders.

(Castiel cannot bring himself to be angry with them, or disappointed. Instead he feels  _pity –_ such an utterly human thing to feel. Pity and a surge of fear; the knowledge of his own lack of power, of ability to put up a real fight against them, to have a _chance_.)

He grips the blade tighter in his hand. It’s not clean, still bearing the blood of a hundred false Dean Winchesters. He hears the barriers tremble around them and Joshua is no solider; he won’t be willing to fight alongside  _or_  against him. Instead the gardener turns to him without wishing him luck before he flies away to another corner of Heaven where there are no swords being drawn.

Again: they are slamming against the doors now. Trying to some weak spot in the ancient magic, in the spellwork laid so many generations ago no one can remember when the Gardens first were planted.

Something moves in the corner of his limited vision. Castiel raises his hand, taking a defensive stance, and he would have flown if he could –

“Cas.”

Only Dean and Sam ever calls him that – but it’s not them.

Though he has only seen his current vessel once before, Gabriel’s face is unforgettable. And on Earth he had seemed powerful, yes, but disguised as a Trickster he had made himself smaller, insignificant, something the angels would look past and sigh at, just another pagan god not serving their Father. Now though, now, walking in the Heavens for the first time in two thousand human years, Gabriel is terrifying. His true form is much larger than his own, than Joshua’s – the Gardener is not an Archangel even if he is one of the Oldest Ones – and his shifting many true faces glaring with light and his eight pair of wings are huge canvases of colour stretching beyond the human spectrum.

And just as the Archangel spreads his wings intimidatingly wide, a crack appears in one of the round corners of the Garden. They’re coming. He hears Inias and Sophia shouting, Hester with them:  _Traitor! We know you are there!_

The Archangel doesn’t acknowledge the growing threat.

“Hi there, bro,” Gabriel says, smiling toothily. From where atoms are hidden on another plane humans cannot reach, he summons some of them to create some Earthly candy that Castiel can’t bother to identify. The Archangel puts a sugary piece in his mouth like that is what all Archangels would do when suddenly appearing in Heaven after millenia of self-imposed exile. The older one then looks around, at the foundations that are slowly sinking under the angels’ assault. “Jeez, did you piss them off or what? See – see, this is why I never liked this place. Not the haven I imagined. Like, what is even psychological advice. Plus I got bored.”

Castiel exhales slowly. What if this is yet another mind-game? Another ploy to make him obey? But – he has to believe. And if anyone could do this, break into the Garden to aid a traitor, it would be Gabriel. Never any other Archangel. “I thought … After the confrontation with Raphael, I wasn’t certain if –”

“Trickster, remember?” The Archangel’s smile widens. He swallows, pops another candy into his mouth with a pleased hum. Carefree. As if there is nothing strange, nothing sudden or unplanned about this meeting. As if the Garden is not under attack.  _”‘Course_  I’m still alive. Well, unfortunately so is ol’ Ralph and she’s is kinda out for my ass. Been awhile since I saw her  _that_  pissed. It’s not really important at the moment though. Now, this is important: can you fly?”

And he  _can’t_. Everything is too slow and heavy and painful now. His vision is diminishing. Once back on Earth, if he gets that far, he won’t be able to perceive true faces anymore. The expression on Gabriel’s vessel shifts and Castiel doesn’t need to speak for the Archangel to understand. Instead of asking anything more, Gabriel steps forward, laying a hand on his vessel’s chest. Castiel knows that trusting Gabriel will be his only way of escape and doesn’t struggle.

There’s a brief burn in his vessel’s bones. Sigils, he realizes. The same trick he used on Dean and Sam. Perhaps Gabriel realized that when he was summoned, so many months ago.

His older brother lets his hand linger for a moment on his chest. He doesn’t smile exactly, with neither one of his true faces or that of his vessel, but there’s a hint of – compassion, acceptance,  _fondness_  even – as Gabriel says, “Dean’s the father, isn’t he?”

There is no time, no meaning in asking how Gabriel could know this – he may have been looking, overhearing whispers, or stealing thoughts from Dean’s mind and reading them like an open book. The secret has died anyway, Castiel is hunted now and angels never rest. They’ll never stop looking for him, for the Nephilim, for as long as it exist. For as long as the orders still stand. To know that Gabriel isn’t angry with him, isn’t disappointed, isn’t set to kill him, sends a sharp feeling through him almost like relief but it weakens him. Shock. 

“Cas. Cassie,” Gabriel says, quietly in his mind:  _You’re a little brother, Cas, and I’ve always liked you, even if you can’t remember it. You were always a bit too curious for an angel._ And the Archangel says, a force, gentle, lilted with what might be emotion:  ** _trust me._**

 _(He knew._  Gabriel knew he would Fall, one day, he  _knew_  –)

He tries to say: “Gabriel –”, something, maybe  _thank you for giving me a chance_  or ask:  _why are you helping me?_  , or  _what am going to do, brother? please_ ** _, tell me_**  - but isn’t given the chance to continue the question - he’s not even sure what to ask. Unsure if this is even a dream. Another illusion, a make-believe shadow of the angels’ doing. Maybe Joshua fled because he knows they’re all being toyed with. He’s tempted to ask if Gabriel (if he’s real) has seen Dean or Sam or Bobby. If he knows they’re all right. But Gabriel says he’s been fighting Raphael - and angel battles can last for milliseconds or eons; the latter especially when Archangels are involved. Knowing Gabriel it is also highly possible that secondary dimensions and smoke and mirrors were involved. There is a reason he took on the name of Loki. 

(Is this a mission? Has he received true Revelation, an order that cannot be disobeyed? Or is Gabriel doing this out of kindness, of empathy, of a sense of humanity after spending so much time hiding on Earth? Is he even able to feel it?)

The walls tremble at another impact, more cracks appearing and something rips through the dimensions into this pocket universe: a hand. In it is an angel blade and then follows a body, a dark woman with such fury on her face. She is followed by two more and they’re yelling, yelling with their true voices though their vessels’ mouths never open:  _Traitor! traitor!_

Beyond them, in the pale unlight breaking up like static, Castiel can glimpse Zachariah. The angel’s true face is fuming. This was never in the plan. The plan, the plan was always different, something else, a world in which all elements would obey him.

(He can’t see the angel without name who had kept him trapped for so long.)

They tumble through. Eight, seven, nine more angels wearing various human vessels after that. All warriors. Some he knows from his old garrison; some have served other captains. All of them one same side now, obedient to Raphael and Zachariah. Beyond them he can spot others: angels that not yet have taken vessels, and to look at them now, to hear their voices, is painful and Castiel has to avert his eyes.

Then they stop short at seeing Gabriel, and had they been human they would have known the emotion within them to be shock. He doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch when their raise their deadly blades in his direction. Flowers around them seem to wither, curling in on themselves, by the presence of so many angels’ wrath. It’s clear: he fled and disobeyed Heaven, as only a traitor would do. But the Archangel doesn’t seem to be bothered at all, even if they could kill him here in an instant and leave the Garden dead and cold.

No, Gabriel doesn’t try to flee this time or even fight. He just stares back at them. Calmly. Smiles.

“Hi there. Long time no see.”

Then he snaps his fingers.

* * *

In the next moment there is no Garden.

Castiel is lying on the hard ground on a gravel road somewhere he cannot recognize but it has to be Earth. The air is cool, his fast breaths condensing. The stars above gleam quietly, foreign galaxies staring back down. Far too many and distant to visit them all. Castiel doesn’t try to move for a long while. Just lies there in silence, allowing his body to calm, his heartbeat to slow from the frantic pace it was at before. With the newly carved sigils in his ribs, the angels cannot track him – or his vessel, at least. And with his Grace dying, soon it won’t be anything left of that to track either.

(Heaven never was home.)

* * *

In his pocket there’s a message left by Gabriel, brief and real:  _Keep safe, little brother. Once I’ve dealt with this stupid mess WHICH I NEVER WANTED TO, I’ll try to come and get you._

He’s not sure if it’s a relief. If Gabriel never finds him – either it’ll be because Castiel is dead. Or Gabriel is. And he doesn’t want his brother to die for him. He never wanted anyone to die for him.

* * *

The world is different from this point of view. So many days have passed since last he walked here; he’s almost forgotten the feeling of solid ground beneath his feet. It’s nice, comforting. A safety even as he’s lost and alone and without direction.

All roads lead to somewhere. So he begins walking.

* * *

The night is very cold, and his Grace burns trying to keep him warm and the Nephilim cared for and himself upright. He’ll need human food and water to sustain himself. Such foreign things. He has only ever watched humans eat. He’s never tried it.

But to get food and water, he knows, he needs other things. Money. That’s the human thing to do. They gain money through work. Albeit, not Sam and Dean. They gamble and hustle pool and swindle people who know nothing of hunters; they do many things considered illegal or immoral. Hunters very rarely get any sort of payment for their work. But they too need to survive.

First, he thinks, he must find a town. Some place of community, where humans are gathered. Perhaps a church, or a mosque, or a synagogue. Even if his Father has left them, humans yet believe Him to be real – those in His houses should be kind enough and they may give him something to eat. Or something warmer to wear. Or directions to a haven, at least. From there he’ll have somewhere to go, maybe finding some purpose.

(In the cities there’ll be dark and empty alleyways where he can hide.)

Cold has never bothered him before. Now it stings his skin like rain and he relishes it, this feeling of closeness to the Earth, for the first two hours of walking. Then, after those long minutes, he begins feeling a slow ache in his feet, his calves. There’s something growing at the pit of his stomach that he’s never before experienced first-hand but at last identifies as hunger. It’s strange, all of these physical sensations he’s never been forced through before. They’re all very dominant, difficult to ignore. Remarkable how strong humans are, enduring all of these discomforts and not sensing so many details of their own bodies, unable to tell what’s really happening, what’s wrong. How to counteract things when not knowing the chemoelectrical paths they take. It was all so very simple before.

He wonders if Dean and Sam are all right. How close they are to finding Lucifer. If they have founded a plan yet to take him down - if such a thing is possible – if the world will end tomorrow.

(He doesn’t pray. It feels too risky calling for his Father or for Gabriel, the one angel he still may trust, or maybe even Joshua even if the gardener was quick to flee earlier. Others could too easily overhear.)

* * *

His pockets are very empty but there’s a phone he has trouble understanding how to use given to him by Dean so long ago ( _If praying ain’t loud enough_ ) while they still talked, before the angels took him back to Heaven. It’s still charged enough to function.

There are forty-eight minutes left on it, he recalls from the last time he used it: the plain pleasant voice reminding him of that fact. And he considers, for a moment, dialling. Not to say anything in particular. Just to hear Dean’s voice.

But he doesn’t call. If he does, he’s scared he’ll break down and do what humans do when they cry. And if he breaks down, he’s unsure if he’ll be able to pick himself up again. Instead he continues walking.

(If Dean is anywhere on Earth praying for him, he cannot hear.)

* * *

Time is beyond his precise senses now but his body has a clock too, though not as exact or true. He glances down at the pale glowing screen of the cellphone: 05:23 it silently screams back at him. Dawn has come, but it has come without warmth. Soon after, he shuts down the phone. Nobody is going to call him, and if he wants once chance later its batteries must be preserved.

(If only he could shut down himself like that for a moment. To pause.)

Traffic has been non-existent on this road up to this point but up ahead there’s light - some structures spotted past the treeline. Rooftops. Castiel tries to determine what kind of buildings there are. If any of them are one of his Father’s houses. But his vision is too bleak for that now. He cannot see through matter to discern its atoms. He has to keep moving.

Not until many long minutes later does he come across a sign reading the name of a town he should be able to pinpoint oh so clearly, but that along with so much other knowledge has been taken from him. A human mind simply can’t hold as much information as that of an angel. And he wonders briefly, briefly how much lore and word and song has been stolen from his mind before by others, and he cannot remember and will not remember. Beyond the sign there is a bridge and a row of houses. Cars are parked like far-away dots and very few are moving. It’s still very early. Most humans are still asleep.

There’s light in some of the windows though as he draws nearer. A coffee shop is dark but next to it a bakery is full of life already. He sees a woman inside, and a man who might be her son, both with strong hands and broad smiles despite the crispness of the new sun. He hesitates. The door is still locked, but the ovens are on. The smell of warm wheat and flour is overwhelming and causes him to stagger, reminding him sharply of the hunger that’s started plaguing him and he can’t just make it stop with a thought. His tongue feels very dry. Maybe – maybe they could offer some water?

They’re still moving, working. Unaware. He steps a little closer to the glass with large translucent letters printed on it proclaiming: GRACE & SON. The name, which perhaps is also the woman’s name, burns in his eyes. He tries not to think of it too much. To think instead of his Father’s Word, so twisted by humans through the ages, where the word  _grace_  would mean something beautiful, a blessing, a gift.

(Their minds are so surrealistically quiet.)

One of them sees him then, as he’s been standing there with frozen feet for over ten minutes. The son – short, kind–faced, and black–haired, perhaps seventeen years old, too terribly innocent to the world’s truths – walks over to the door. The bells ring clear and loud in the silent morning. He looks at him, at this stranger on the threshold with his dishevelled coat, frowns a little, dark hands knotting in the towel he carries. There’s dough under his fingernails. 

“We’re not open yet,” the human says. There’s a radio humming in the background. The boy glances over his shoulder, calling: “Mom! There’s some guy here, should I open early?”

“Oh, sure, I think we can handle one customer,” is the answer from within. Her voice sounds like the rustling heart of the forest during the blossom of spring when everything returns to life after the harshness of winter. As the door is opened fully, the warmth and smell of bread hits him with such force that he nearly sinks to his knees.

“You new to town or something?” the boy asks as he steps inside, Castiel moving slowly behind him. His back hurts. He’d really like to sit down, like he did at the Prophet’s house on the Prophet’s couch so many months ago. The Nephilim moves a little restlessly, and he tugs the coat closed over the round, hoping to hide it. He can’t hear what the human boy is thinking, if he thinks anything of the bump at all, if he notices that there’s something unnatural about it, if he is too busy with his own affairs to care. A pair of headphones are looped over his ears as if he was listening to music just now. “We’ve got quite a lot of regulars, but not even old Howard’s this early,” the boy goes on.

“Yes,” Castiel manages to say. His is voice rough, unused to speech after the long night. The boy jumps a little, startled by the low uncertain tone. “I’m ... I’m new.”

“Cool. I’m Josh, by the way – that’s my mom, Grace, and we’re open like, every weekday morning by seven thirty, except when there’s an accident or something. We’re still not finished with everything for today but, here, have a look.” The boy points toward a lit counter with a glass covering, under which there’s an incomplete row of different breads and sweet treats of various shape and size. “If you want something else we could make it for you, just holler. Be right back.”

He disappears into the large open kitchen behind one of the counters, walking up to the woman who’s just putting something in the oven there, a glimpse through the door before it closes. She says something to him, the conversation too far off for Castiel to clearly hear. They smile, as a mother and son smiles as one another on a day when all is well and they find joy in each other’s work and in the gifts they can hand to others under the rising shining sun.

A sharp pain hits him in the gut. It’s not hunger – not for food.

He wonders if Dean is all right. If Sam is still alive. If Bobby is all right, if the man has healed any more since last Castiel saw him – if the man still cannot walk. If they pray. If they believe.

(This longing could eat him up from the inside.)

He remains standing there, staring at the breads, for quite some time. Not knowing what to decide. He knows nothing of food or how one chooses it. Dean has such a love for pie, and Jimmy liked his burgers. Neither of those is here to choose from. But what does it matter? His pockets are empty. There’s a hollow pit in his gut and in his heart, and he has no money, and he doesn’t know where to go.

The woman – Grace – sees him move, and walks up smiling. She catches up before he can get through the door and walk through. He doesn’t want to walk away, not yet, but –

“Find anything you’d like, sir?” Her voice is pleasant. She sounds like she sleeps too little, though, even if her smile looks natural.

Castiel hesitates. “I, I don’t have any money.”

Her smile falters. And there’s a shadow of pity or perhaps sympathy next, something Castiel isn’t used to, something he isn’t sure he likes. But his hunger is great now. Then she says, gently: “There’s a batch coming out of the oven in just a minute – why don’t you sit down and I’ll fetch some marmalade?”

Which Castiel isn’t sure if it’s what a shop like this really does, but he follows her gaze to the corner where there indeed is a set of round tables with square tablecloth and chairs with leather seats. “... Yes,” he says, adding like a human would: “Please. Yes. Thank you.”

(Pleading and giving thanks is what humans do.)

* * *

Food isn’t like in the memories of Jimmy Novak. It makes the whole of his being greedy and wanting more. She offers coffee and he says yes, though regrets it soon after because the bitter taste doesn’t sit well in his mouth. The baker sees his sour expression as she comes carrying a tray – there’s marmalade, two different kinds, and yeasted bread that’s been circularly cut. His human mouth waters at the sight. She puts it down on the table, asking if he maybe would like some milk and sugar with that. She apologizes they’re out of tea, that there’s little else to be had. Castiel, never having tasted tea, or having a memory of it, just says she shouldn’t be sorry for something so trivial. She’s been too kind already. Her soul probably is very beautiful and he’s sorry for not being able to see its true splendour.

In response she smiles, somewhat taken aback at the remark about her soul, and tells him to continue eating, to simply ask if there’s anything he needs. Such a simple human gesture, this show of compassion and, though he knows not all humans are like this, there are no angels in Heaven to compare. They have never been taught what kindness means.

And as morning turns into day, Castiel sits by the window, eating marmalade.

* * *

He cannot write it down, but he can remember: _I have never been afraid before I came to Earth._ And he cannot say it aloud but he can think it:  _I have never feared Heaven as much as I should have._

(How long will Gabriel be able keep them at bay? How long will his brother last? How many hours? and then - the chaos, the silence, the breaking of the walls: the angels will come. They will, someday. It’s inevitable. There are an infinite number of them, and Gabriel stands alone.

The Earth is so small. There’s nowhere else to go. The Pearly Gates are closed.)

* * *

Eventually he has to move again. He thanks the mother and son once more, feeling much more content, although his bones are weary. They just tell him to return as soon as he’s able. Telling him he’ll be welcome here. He doesn’t correct them to say he’s only moving away, away, never coming back.

The windows close behind him. He cannot see it: cannot hear the bells.

Castiel does not turn around.

* * *

The town is awake now. People on their way to work. Early risers out jogging or walking their dog. Streetlamps turned off. He spots two women helping their young children out of the door, taking them to a bus stop. There are bags slung over their shoulders, filled with books and pencils and the children are chatting loudly while their parents look at the world with proud and happy eyes. Castiel has to move past them quickly. It hurts to look at them.

Traffic moves with quiet rumbling noise. As he walks down the street, not aiming at anyplace in particular, no one pays him any heeds.

There are no angels or demons or hunters here. Just normal people, these normal people with their lives and they are completely unaware of the Apocalypse. They may have watched the news, strange disasters happening someplace else but the world is unfair and there has never been a day on Earth without conflict or natural disasters and no one asks (though many people try to). Here, here there’s peace and normality and no one considers a lonely man walking through the town, his shoes broken and taking in water.

Slowly he’s sinking.

* * *

People on the street give him wide berth. Humans don’t like contact – (Dean had kept insisting on personal space, this concept that is foreign to angels because they’re not meant to feel, not meant to think of themselves as separate entities but part of a whole controlled mind) – but Castiel finds himself longing for the warmth of someone else’s body next to his own. Just to be looked at and acknowledged. It had felt so good when the baker and her son had smiled at him and offered bread and peace for a little while. And maybe they were just outstanding, remarkable humans, ones among the handful of souls that always shine while all others merely shift between grays in the dark.

A man is walking past in a hurry, not looking at the road but busily talking into his phone, eyes unseeing and uncaring as he crosses the road. Precarious. His strides are swift and powerful and he knocks into Castiel’s shoulder. It hurts, a strange bruising pain, and his body jolts and he wonders if he should be angry with the man for so roughly pushing him aside, continuing on without apology or pause. That would be a human thing to do – right? He tries remembering what Dean or Sam would have done.

Then the man has already disappeared around a corner and the street is full of other people, new faces without names. Castiel staggers on, feet heavy. There’s an ending somewhere – somewhere – but he doesn’t know how to turn pages. Angels aren’t taught such things. It’s the humans who learn to start anew, to question the world and find joy in it. When all is dark, what do humans do? They make fire. They make light.

(He has rebelled, fled and battled, and all for one man – there has been no such feeling like joy coming from it. And if this is joy, if this pain is what humans would feel, if this is what they find no matter what they seek – then Castiel doesn’t want to be human.)

* * *

There’s a church sitting on the crest of a hill. It’s one of thousands others just like it in this land and today at this early hour it’s empty. It’s not a Sunday.

For a while he stands outside the wide and recently unlocked doors, considering. He cannot risk a prayer. But inside, though the stone walls will be cold, he’ll have shelter from the wind. So he walks inside and can remember the whisper of his Father’s presence, even if he never once saw His face, and he takes seat on a long wooden bench, feeling hollow. His hands are stiff and difficult to move. He grasps one of the thick books lying there waiting, unopened. Of course the verses are all wrong, though he knows them all anyway in any language in any version ever printed. For what are angels if they do not learn the Word, in every form conceived, even these ones not put down by the Scribe, distorted by time and translation and human misgivings? What are angels if they do not believe in the Word?

Echoes on the walls: Castiel traces the words, and thinks that maybe, he could say them, try to believe. Hope them. Gabriel has branded his ribs – he could be safe, the angels could be fooled into not hearing him. _Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, in Earth, as it is in Heaven –_ (oh, the credence, the promises shouted, and the humans wishing for it to be so. If they knew – And Castiel wants to tell them all: _It’s a lie. Heaven isn’t safe at all. You don’t want to go there_.)

But he does dare to whisper _: “.. _. and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”__

(Evil is some fabrication that he can’t recognize anymore.)

He sits there thumbing the pages, not reading the words but whispering them in Enochian and other languages that no one here would know, tongues dead since long ago. He never speaks His name, just imagines it and wonders if He has been reaped by Death and that’s why He never answers. If that’s why the Apocalypse is occurring. If that’s why Joshua said He doesn’t care anymore.

He can’t say Gabriel’s name aloud, but he thinks of him as briefly as he dares and would have prayed:  _Be safe, brother._

_He looks at the murals on the walls and the colourful windows. The faces of the saints depicted there are calm and glowing. This is not a great cathedral, nor one of the modern stadiums from which a rich man may speak to hundreds or thousands at a time. Yet it is full of art, and the stonework is silent. It is peaceful. He can understand the appeal of this restful place, but misses the sounds of choir: in Heaven, there would be a Choir in a place such as this. There should be a choir._

Then he hears the rustle of moment and glimpses an elderly man with a black and white collar exiting a room beyond the altar, carrying the manmade Script in one hand and a notebook in the other. He might be planning the next mass, what words to speak (because there are always too many to choose from).

And Castiel has a strange urge to walk up to him and say, say something; tell the man about the truth of angels and how their Father is gone and how he’s so alone and he doesn’t know what to do. Tell him, tell him that he no longer knows how much of the Word is a lie or if He ever spoke it or if they all just imagined it. Tell him how fragile all the foundations they’ve build their lives upon really are.

But the priest sees him first. Looks at him curiously. He is not part of this congregation.

“Hello there, son. Can I help you?”                                                   

“I don’t know, Father,” Castiel says, cannot escape honesty. He does not know. He looks down at the book he’d plucked from its stand, its engraved simplicity, and slowly he puts it back. It brings him nothing but more questions and they can’t be answered, least not by a priest who knows nothing of the truth of Heaven. The man probably has never read the Winchester Gospel – well, in the form they’re known right now, anyway; the Prophet’s books are seen as amusing fiction, nothing more (and they’ve all veered off script).

“You can pray, if you want. God can give us comfort,” the man says, and he means only well.

Castiel wishes he could say:  _I know._ There’s a bitter taste in his mouth and hollowness in the space where his soul should have been buried. He knows what Jimmy Novak would have said, what he himself would have said in a former life. And he feels sorrow and pity for Jimmy who has now learned that it’s all a lie.

“Not anymore,” Castiel says instead, feeling strange like on the verge of tears, like he did when tied down in that chair in Heaven when the angel – (her name might have been Naomi but he isn’t certain) – when she had threatened to cut the baby out of him. He can’t bring himself to stand up. His legs feel too weak.

The priest takes seat next to him on the wooden pew, sounding sympathetic and concerned. As if they weren’t just strangers. As if Castiel too is human and he matters. “Well, I can always listen,” the man says, “even if you feel that the Lord cannot.”

(Yes, he remembers. They swear oaths, the human priests, of silence, to not spread words. They will always be there to listen.)

“Thank you,” Castiel says, swallowing harshly and somehow forcing back the tears. “Would–” Then he changes his mind. What would the man know of his Father’s disappearance? Of the world’s ending? Of the battleground that Heaven has become? Instead he’s rapidly asking: “Do you think sin is real?”

“What makes you wonder?” the priest says, frowning a little. And Castiel almost laughs then, because this is one of his Father’s servants who believes in the Word, which clearly states what sin is, that all humans have it and maybe angels too. That it’s something that they all so clearly deserve. “Has something happened to cause you to sin?”

“I, I don’t know. They keep saying I’ve sinned.” He doesn’t specify. Because the man would not believe it if he said what his brothers and sisters really are and that they’ve cast him out. Because humans keep thinking of angels as foreign creatures of goodness, with smiles and harps and halos and white wings. “But I don’t know if I have.”

(Is this the emotion that humans refer to when they speak of broken hearts?)

“I am sorry,” the man says and it’s not comforting, just  _almost._  At least the man isn’t yelling or pushing him out, telling him that they’re right, that he  _is_  a sinner and deserves penance. Claiming his child is an abomination worthy of death. “Would you like me to pray for you?”

 _“No,”_  he says at once, the word raw, he cannot let the man come at risk for praying for his sake. “No, Father,” he repeats more calmly, seeing the priest’s worry deepen. Amends. For that’s his task, isn’t it? To lead the sheep, to care for them, to answer their questions when they have nowhere else left to turn. This should be a shelter. But he cannot tell the truth. It wouldn’t be safe. “I – I don’t want anyone to be put in danger. To be hurt.”

“Did you hurt someone?”

“No. Yes. I lied. I tried to keep them safe, them all safe. To do that I had to lie.” The words tumble out. He almost says: _Dean, I wanted to protect Dean and maybe I love him_ – _is this emotion love? And I wanted to keep Dean safe._ And he remembers what Anael said so long ago, while they both were angels and had never Fallen: “She... My sister once said I’ve got too much heart.”

_You were always too curious for an angel._

“But that’s a good thing,” the priest says. Trying to comfort him, a stranger. Is this what humans do? “Without heart, what kind of person would you be?”

He has been without heart. For a long, long time he was. He was cold, a solider, obedient, a perfect marble statue. Like all the statues of Mary holding her newborn Son to her breast, without flaw. Now there are cracks all over the place. Shelves falling off, like ice caps melting, and he is drowning in an unknown sea. “I tried to be that person. I tried so hard. I tried to obey them ... my old family. I tried being a good son.”

“Then maybe you need to leave those people behind,” the priest says, and he may have spoken with people in what he thinks is a similar situation before. A beaten wife. A battered soul, seeking hope and shelter from abuse. Castiel cannot tell him the truth.

“I’ve tried. I’m – trying. There are some, some friends. They’re good. They’re kind to me.” _I can’t find them anymore or they’ll be hurt._  ”Some – Humans, they’re good. And I, I have a brother. I pulled him into, into this. He tried running away, too, before. I pulled him back without considering the consequences, before I realized what I must do, and now he’s trying to help me, I think, but everyone just keeps getting hurt.” Gabriel had found his freedom, his safe little corner of the world and Castiel had abruptly tugged him away from that. Now he could be in Heaven, trapped in a growing civil war, fighting Raphael and hundreds of other angels with no way out. And Dean and Sam have no angels left on their shoulders. Just rushing toward them with swords in their hands, hungry for blood. “How can I help people if all I do is to keep getting them hurt?”

“If,” the priest says, “your intentions are good – they do say that Hell is full of good meanings, but Heaven is full of good works. And I like to think that it’s not actually like that. I try thinking that the road to Heaven is paved with good intentions. Because we’re human trying to do our best, aren’t we? Sometimes, sometimes we try our hardest but no matter how we try putting things right, things just don’t turn out as good as we like. We are all part of the puzzle. I’m certain God has a place for you, son.”

Castiel isn’t certain at all.

“Thank you, Father,” he says anyway. None of this is the human’s fault – he is trying. It’s what humans do. “Is it all right if I sit here for a little while more?”

“Of course,” the priest says. “You can stay however long you’d like.” (However long he needs.)

This is one of his Father’s houses and even if He isn’t here, Castiel would like to pretend that He is. Or that, better yet, that Dean and Sam and Bobby would be here too. That he would be sitting in Bobby’s ratty kitchen, there’d be the scent of newly opened beer and piles of salt and old rare books that Sam and Bobby would be leafing through, and Dean would be making some reference in a joke that Castiel wouldn’t understand completely, and there’d be ghosts and demons outside the door but no angels. (Never any angels.) But that is just a dream.

The priest leaves him be after that, sensing his need for silence. Castiel lets his hands rest on his belly, which he has no strength left to make illusions to hide, and it’s a relief to feel a slight kick. At least the child is not afraid. At least it still has comfort. 

He fears the moment it’ll leave the safety of the womb.

* * *

He lets the hours pass slowly before he crawls to his feet again and they’re rested enough now so that he can continue to walk (even if he would like to lie down, lie down and attempt what humans call sleep, though he’s not sure if he wouldn’t simply end entirely then, all lights going out). The priest watches him go through the door, wishing him luck. He doesn’t offer any prayers. 

There’s a swift heavy overcast outside, a little colder. Moving will get him warm again. There are a few pieces of bread and a near-empty bottle of marmalade in his pocket, given to him by Grace and her son ( _Please take it, or we’ll just have to throw out the leftovers anyhow_.) As he exits the church he finds his stomach growling again, like it did this morning, so he chews absently on a corner of a crust while crossing the street, searching for a sign. There’s a bunch of them just up ahead, pointing north and south and telling him names of other towns nearby. 

One of them says PONTIAC in bright white.

It’s far, too many miles on foot. But Castiel doesn’t care. If he doesn’t keep moving there’s a higher risk of being found.

(Dean never told him all the details of what happened in that future. Dean never told him that it was to Pontiac he went to say goodbye to his daughter.)


End file.
